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needcake · 1 year

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Day 5: how to lose

Engport, Fruk | PG | 3k

@engportevents

The deeper they go into the ancient forest, the more restless his brother becomes.

“This is a mistake,” Wales whispers, voice tight, low. There’s a warning of fear and danger in his tone but England cannot and will not listen to it. He has come too far, he has lost too much. He dodges the low-hanging branches and thick protuberant roots. France is winning the war with the aid of a teenage girl and he cannot let that happen.

They have left the sunlight behind them, here in the thick of the woods no light can guide their steps.

Wales is shivering beside him, his hands gripping his bow with an arrow ready to be strung and released if his sharp eyes see danger in the dark. England places a hesitant hand on top of the pommel of his sword strapped to his waist as well. It is known that the witches live where men’s new age cannot find them. To seek their help in order to win the war of a hundred years against France, England knows he must first cross the gates of no return and abandon all fear.

He stops. Wales turns his head sharply over his shoulder and his voice struggles to find words when the sound of England’s belt and sheath hit the hard, frozen ground.

“What are you doing?” he hisses at him, but almost immediately after England lets go of his weapon, a small fire lights in front of them.

“We’re here,” he says, he knows. Deep inside himself, he knows where they are and that had found the place they set out to find.

“England—” his brother still tries, tries to dissuade him from the idea, tries to foolishly pull him back with a warning, reasonable hand on his elbow as England moves to pass him by on his way to the flickering red-orange flame, but he shrugs off all caution and marches on.

He won’t lose. Not to France, not to anyone.

The flame burns hot in front of him. He has no questions in his mind, only a single, resolute wish.

“I’m ready,” he tells the flame and the fire grows bigger, hotter, warming his skin to the point of discomfort, sweat gathering under his clothes. He reaches inside his cloak for a small leather bag of golden coins and offers it forth. “I can pay the price.”

But the fire licks the bag and turns his riches into a pile of ash.

A voice echoes in the ancient forest, coming from inside the flame, deep and guttural, as old as the tall, powerful trees, as wise as their roots.

Fate has been sealed, you cannot change it.

“England—” Wales warns him again, but England still won’t listen.

“I make my own fate,” he declares, loud and proudly, stuffing his chest to stare down at the mystical flame and the incomprehensible power hidden within. “Give me victory, name your price.”

A tendril of fire licks his chest, burning his skin without singeing his clothes, touching his heart.

Your heart, the voice echoes, and he hears Wales rustling behind him, trying to reach for him before it’s too late. Give us your heart, land of the Angles.

“That’s too steep a price—!” Wales hisses near his shoulder, but England has come too far. He will not come back empty-handed.

France has told him time and time again that he has no heart to speak of. What a small price, it seems. The gains far outweigh the losses.

“Take it,” he concedes, ignores Wales’ sharp intake of breath behind him. “Take everything inside it. Give me victory over France and his allies.”

Fire engulfs and burns him, his screams echo in the forest as pain blinds him.

He remembers Wales calling out his name.

And then nothing.

A twig breaks in the woods and England blinks himself back to awareness. In front of him only a few meters away, a young stag stares at him blinking slowly before dashing away. He looks down on his hands at the arquebus he carries in his arms.

He lets the animal flee. A small mercy in the grand scheme of things.

“Sir, would you like us to continue the pursuit?” a servant comes bustling through the trees to ask, breathless and red in the face, immediately bowing down to him in deference and fear, shoulders and hands trembling. “It is my fault we lost it, your grace, I accept responsibility. Please don’t punish my family.”

England blinks at him. “It’s just a stag,” he says slowly, frowning, trying to remember who this servant is, where they are, what is happening.

The young man glances up at him strangely before turning his eyes back down.

“Would you like us to continue the pursuit, sir?” he asks again, but England shakes his head.

He looks at the woods around him, looks at himself. He is dressed in different, richer clothes, a style different from what he normally wears. The woods seem to be the ones outside London and not the ancient forest of the before. Sunlight filters through the leaves and warms his face, it must be summer.

“I’d like to go back home now, please,” he says, and the servant again lifts his head to look at him strangely, wide-eyed.

“But the hunt, sir… Are you feeling quite alright, sir?”

England rises to his feet, feels the weight of the firearm in his hands. “Why do you ask?”

The young men forgets himself as he looks him directly in the eye, frowning in confusion, speaking slowly when he says, “It’s just that… I have never heard your grace say ‘please’ before.”

As he enters the palace, people bow before greeting him, whispering his name in fright and awe.

Hung above them on the stone walls, he sees tapestries depicting battles England cannot remember fighting, scenes of a powerful cavalry marching over the French countryside, trampling the French banner under their hooves. The fashions of the courtiers lining the walls near the windows seem different from what he remembers as well as, similar to the clothes he himself is wearing yet foreign to him altogether.

But as the servants open the doors to the great hall, in the process of being richly decorated for a lavish and important event, he is met with the most astonishing surprise of all: France, as he lives and breathes, turning to face him with a snarl of discontent and aversion.

“The servants tell me you let your catch escape, so much for wanting to serve our enemies with the spoils of your hunt,” he says loudly, derisively, in what England supposes is a mockery of his hunting efforts that morning. France gives him an exaggerated sigh, swirling his hand in the air. “No matter, I have already arranged for something else to be served instead, I didn’t want you near the kitchens scaring my cooks anyway.”

England looks at the hand France has is the air, gesturing as he speaks, and notices a golden band around the ring finger. He looks at his own left hand, where a matching ring adorns his own ring finger.

“We are married,” he says slowly, questioningly, eyebrows raised, and France interrupts his tirade to stare at him dumbfounded, caught off-guard. “Are we not at war with one another anymore?”

France’s eyebrows scrunch in a way that is most unflattering and could potentially cause the wrinkles that he oh so hates. He doesn’t have a chance to speak of them because suddenly France is stalking in his direction and gripping his face in both hands none-too-gently, turning his head from side to side, up and down, looking at him as strangely as the servant in the woods had before him.

“Did you hit your head during the hunt?” France demands, but England shakes his head, struggling against his tight grip, ineffectively trying to push him away. “If this is your idea of a joke, it is not funny. I’m stressed about tonight as it is, I will not have you ruin tonight’s negotiations over a ridiculous prank—”

“What negotiations? France, you’re hurting me.”

France’s hand fall immediately limp to his sides and England takes a small step back, thumb and forefinger massaging his chin where France had seized him. France’s eyes are wide when he looks at them again, blue eyes staring at him as if England had gone completely mad.

“Please tell me you’re joking,” he says weakly, the snarl of his lips coming undone in his shock.

But right as England opens his mouth to speak, a servant hurries into the room.

“Sir,” he says to France, doing a quick double-take as he sees England there as well and immediately retreats a step to bow, keeping his eyes down, his posture so promptly changing into something like submission in his presence that England feels sick to his stomach at the sight. “The Azorean delegation has arrived.”

“Shit,” France whispers under his breath, too low for anyone but himself to hear, but as England directs a questioning glance at him, he shakes his head, a nervousness he has never seen in France showing through the cracks of his composure before it is quickly and efficiently smothered away. Turning to the servant, he orders firmly, “See them to their quarters and make sure they do not leave until we’re ready.”

The man nods, stealing another quick glance at England before turning on his heels and moving to comply.

“Who are the Azoreans?” England asks privately, frowning at the space the servant had been standing on only seconds before.

France takes him roughly by the arm in a bruising grip that has England yelping and looking up sharply at him in alarm.

“That is not funny,” France hisses in his face, “You have no idea what I had to do to convince him to meet us tonight, you will not ruin this with your wicked sense of humor and untimely insolence. I don’t know what you’re trying to pull here, but you will snap out of it.”

He doesn’t know how to respond. England gapes stupidly in face of France’s anger and the act of doing so seems to surprise France as well because his grip loosens, his eyes widen by fractions.

“Do you really—do you really not know?” France whispers in horror.

England might have been thrown into a world he doesn’t recognize or understand, but he knows better than to let France of all people see through his momentary weakness and use it to his own benefit. So he stiffens his spine, raises his chin in defiance. He pries France’s hand from his arm with a firm shove. “If you will not tell me, I’ll find the answers myself,” he says, but France is still looking at him in stunned silence, frozen in place. “I’ll be in my quarters getting ready for our important dinner with the Azorean delegation.” And he knows it was the right thing to say when that seems to snap France out of his daze, his eyes narrowing at him, lips pressed into a thin line, doing nothing to stop him as England leaves him for the corridors, trying to avoid the whispering courtiers as much as he knew how.

Perhaps they were no longer at war, but it was clear to him that he and France were not friends. No golden bands on their ring fingers had changed that, and it seemed that it still wouldn’t in the near future. Centuries of war and loss couldn’t be so easily overcome, even if England couldn’t remember anything after the fateful meeting with the witches in the forest.

He knows he’s missing something. Information, facts, time. Time had elapsed from his memory, but from the way people cowered away from him in his path, he knew his presence had been felt.

He needed to think. He needed someone he could trust who could tell him what was happening. He couldn’t go into a diplomatic meeting blind.

“Do you know where I can find my brother?” he asks an aide on his way to his chambers, but the man just looks at him in confusion, eyebrows tightly drawn. England huffs impatiently and moves on. As he enters another corridor and goes up a flight of stairs, he meets another aide and asks again, “My brother, Dylan Kirkland, do you know where I can find him?” But again he is met with confusion and wariness.

He is distraught and frustrated by the time he pushes the doors to his rooms open, but thoughts of finding Wales leave him as he stares up at the portrait hanging on the wall opposite to the entrance.

His last memory before finding himself in the woods outside London this morning, was of fire consuming his body, a scream being ripped from his throat as he felt his heart gripped in pain.

What he had become, the man he had turned into after that moment, looks back at him from the canvas on the wall, dressed in fine Venetian cloth and expensive ermine furs, holding scepter and royal orb, eyes so vile and wicked it sends a shiver up his back.

A man without a heart.

Tears line his eyes and England cannot hold them back.

What had he done.

“Those are not the clothes we agreed to,” France hisses at him when England forces his feet back into the great hall dressed in the old fashion, with clothes he found buried into his trunks. He ignores France’s indignant huffs and puffs beside him. This is what he feels comfortable wearing, he doesn’t care how it makes him look.

“Let’s get this over with,” he says firmly back, and the gruffness of his tone seems to be something France is already used to because he promptly straightens, looks sharply ahead without commenting on his garments any further.

The hall is decorated in their colors, vivid red and royal blue, golden lions and fleur-de-lis embroidered on the banners hung around them. An entire pig had been roasted with vegetables and a generous coat of butter, the smell of it reminding England that he hadn’t had anything to eat all day. The place on the table reserved for the King is vacant. When he asked about the King’s whereabouts before, all he had received as an answer was a vague reference to an unexplained illness. Perhaps after this dinner was dealt with he could convince France to explain it to him on clearer terms.

The woman sitting on the Queen’s side was young, far younger than the Queen he remembered, and French. That would explain the union with France, but there were still so many questions on his mind. Did they win the war? What happened to the girl leading the French army, the maiden from Orleans? And what had happened to their other neighbors? Where was Wales? And Scotland, and Ireland? Had Castile and Aragón not opposed to his union with France? Had not Portugal?

The last thought sends a knot of anguish into the pit of his stomach.

In their last exchange of letters, Portugal had confided that he would be attempting to take the north of Africa in a campaign that could potentially take years and that would leave his country virtually defenseless against Castile if he ever tried something. What if the worst had happened? What if England had failed to help him in his hour of need?

The Azorean delegation is announced and their noble titles are listed. It’s a small party, only a plenipotentiary, an Admiral and two guards. Such a small party, he catches himself thinking, such a small party for them to have put in place such lavish decorations.

He tugs the ends of France’s doublet beside him, and France grimaces at his hand and then at him, throwing him an irritated questioningly glance.

“I seem to…” England starts, licks his lips, France narrows his eyes at his hesitancy, “I seem to have forgotten,” he says, trying to find the right words, to navigate strange waters he himself cannot quite comprehend. “You called the Azoreans our enemies before, when did— when did it start?”

France’s lips part. His body turns more fully towards him. “Did you really hit your head during the hunt? I wasn’t sure before, but—”

“Just answer me!” England whispers with vehemence through clenched teeth and France’s knee-jerk response to the bark is to snarl, turning back around to face the incoming party, shoulders tense.

“Nineteen years ago,” he replies in clipped, low whispers. “Ever since they were forced out of Europe and took refuge in a cluster of islands they found in the Atlantic. Now they have us landlocked with their navy, they dominate the sea and the trade of spices, and they will not trade with us or allow us to trade with others.”

England frowns. “Why not?”

France turns to look at him as if it was obvious, as if England should be the last person to ask that question.

“Because you betrayed them.”

England stares back at him. How could he betray someone when he doesn’t even know who they are?

“It is our honor,” the young Queen says loudly to greet the foreigners that enter the great hall, and both England and France are forced out of their whispered conversation to look at the incomers. “To welcome you, distinguished sirs. May you come in peace.”

England feels light-headed. He feels sick. The smell of the richly roasted pig now makes him want to hurl.

Because coming at the front of the Azorean delegation, dressed fully in black with a hand wrapped menacingly on the pommel of the sword at his waist, his long hair firmly tied behind his head and a battle scar running across his face partially hidden by a black eye-patch while his right green-colored eye, the color of the shallow waters on his beaches they had walked across together not too long ago, when they were young and carefree, now glared at him with a hatred so deep England could barely keep his knees from folding under him, is Portugal.

“We thank you, your highness, for your hospitality,” Portugal – Azores – responds to the Queen’s greetings, but stands tall and proudly in front of her, openly refusing to bow in respect, his single eye still fixed on England. “But our peace shall be determined by your own actions on this evening.”

#engportweekevent #engportweek #engport #hws england #hws portugal #hetalia #fruk #hws france #hws wales #this is a rehash of an old wip that i might be tempted to finish now #we shall see #I like this idea a lot #a wild fic appears

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