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mostlyfrukheadcannons · 6 years

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The House in the Wood

Written for the fruk gift exchange to @kenobi. Fem!England x France. Modern day setting. The gist of the prompt is that the two of them have been out of hegemony for very long time, and are learning to settle back as former empires, and to enjoy life slowly. I’ve chosen to focus primarily on their struggles to deal with their postcolonial guilt from all the devastation they caused as former hegemons that played the game of great power politics. I’m also deeply ashamed by how edgey it turned out lol. EDIT: Silly me I forgot to tag @fruk-net, whom I’d like to thank for organising this wonderful event :D

Once, there was a precious little space in a deep, green woods. Beloved by the personification of England in her youngest days, where the little child would cautiously watch out for intruders tread in her forest.

The only exception she made was for her siblings who occasionally dropped by on short visits to visit her. That, and this strange boy from across the ocean. He said his name was Francis. He spoke in a strange tongue that was like the burbling of a flowing stream. He dressed in ridiculous silk robes that he should never be worn on visits to a forest.

But this Francis was acceptable. He would bring along different treats and snacks for Alice to try. He would speak gently to her, eyes sparkling without a hint of comprehension. On such days, Alice would deign to allow him to sit with her in a clearing in the forest, to quietly look up at the stars and be filled with a quiet awe.

Once, there was flurry of construction — bold and brazen — of a gargantuan house smack at the center of that spot in the forest. It was presided over by a certain English nation, who had grown more sharp-eyed and scrutinising, with the weight of many, many years behind her. Those were years steeped in bloodshed. (And no small amount of enmity. That little French boy had grown up tall and vain, with a sword by his side that he would point and stick into her if he could. As she would him. At any rate…...)

The House being built was to be tall. Impressive. Overriding those memories of the most naive times when she had slept there with one whom she had believed to be a friend; and over the trails of the invading armies that had punctured through these very forests to pierce at the heart of the England.

It was to be a landmark signifying a new start and a new direction for the English nation. The roar of a dragon with the irrepressible desire to devour the world entire. (Especially since said nation had to face a world that would rapaciously tear every right to power from her grasp simply because of her gender.)

In keeping with that thought, when the House was finished, Alice commissioned for a massive, sprawling map of the world to be hung up in the drawing room, serving as a centerpiece. Over that map, she peremptorily struck in pins with the British flag upon them, to mark all the foreign lands and peoples that were to be brought under her rule— for the glory of Britain.

Then she smirked a little, at the thought that perhaps she could dye these lands in the trademark red of her empire’s colour. Specifically, in the blood of that French fool, who was bound to stand in her way. Well, Alice certainly looked forward to it:

To crushing him, wherever he rose to fight her.

Then the days of reckoning came. Alice thinks days, because there was not one single moment that led her to question what lay in at the foundations of her empire. To look, and realise, that all along it stood upon a mountain of bones.

It was only one night, sleeping in that House of hers, that it struck her in a nightmare with the force of a typhoon. The question how many have I killed.

Instantly, from the depths of her mind she sees garbled visions of so many children and civilisations, looking back at her — the personification of the empire that took everything away from them — through what she called a ‘civilising mission’, but what they screamed was colonialism.

(Somehow Alice remembers their faces just a little, because in some twisted way they were her people too. Just like how some small part of her had always known that it was wrong for her to march into someone else’s land, and take possession of it, by deriding them as ‘savages’ incapable of self-governance).

But what scares her most isn’t the way these faces at her, as if bearing witness to what she had done.

What scares her most is how human they look. How diverse the faces are. How beautiful they were…... and the infinity of what-could-have-beens stretching out from their faces — blowing apart her mind’s ability to comprehend — how they could have had dreams, grown old with their families, thrived within their communities….

If her Empire had never come coming knocking at their doorsteps.

The first awareness that she’d had of the nightmare fading away, was when she felt a cool cloth being placed upon her forehead, and a voice speaking softly over her. Even semi-conscious, she recognises from instinct that the timbre and lilt of that voice belongs to Francis.

As the hours go by, Francis’ words start to sound more intelligible. “You’ve been missing for days,” is the first thing he says to her that she fully understands.

And then, “You need more rest,” is what he tells her, when she gets up from her bed.

But Alice doesn’t think that she should be resting. A sickening, twisting feeling in her gut tells her that something is terribly, terribly wrong. When she feels enough strength in her body, she immediately gets up, in spite of Francis’ efforts to stop her…... She takes in the sight of her bedroom around her…...

And immediately she retches. There are faces, faces everywhere, staring at her, unblinking. She tries to scream but no sound comes out. She starts to convulse, and she can’t suppress the impulse to cry.

Her mind is clogged up by the white noise of terror. Francis’ urgent voice barely makes it through to her fog of fear, and it feels like eternity before she can take to heart his urgings to calm down, take deep breaths…...

And then she realises that the faces staring at her are but crude etchings along her bedroom walls.

“You drew them” Francis tells her, in a cool voice meant to steady her. The statement just makes her mind spin, “When I found you, you were delirious, still babbling incoherently, still trying to use one of your sharper daggers to desperately carve more faces into the walls…...It took quite a while for me to restrain you…...”

“Oh,” Alice responds, breath still short. She takes in the sight of the once-grand facades of her bedroom, which have now become a memorial to these ghosts, eerie and tarnished. Then her heart drops when she thinks of all the manuscripts and precious novels she’d also stowed away in this House.

“What about my private library?” she asks, voice shaky, mind numb.

Francis shakes his head. “I’ve looked through many of the books. Many pages have been torn out….. And the faces…... many of the books have been damaged beyond repair.”

Alice looks down at her hands. Feels the buzzing sensation still coursing through her twitching fingers, and the panic still exploding within her head, telling her to continue, that not all might be lost — if only — if only she could stop a little bit of the past from slipping away, just etch into the walls one more face…...

But what’s done is done. Soon after Alice locks the House up, and abandons it, leaving it standing in the woods, like a mausoleum never to be opened.

One last thing: just before Francis leaves, he turns to her with a softness she hasn’t seen in his eyes for centuries. “Just so you know, I don’t judge you for this at all.”

“Oh really,” Alice remarks, tone soaking with self-depreciation.

“Because I too have done something similar to this before.”

And suddenly, Alice realises that the tiredness about Francis isn’t just his defeat and occupation during WWII weighing down on him: its guilt. It’s the recognition that all along Big Brother France was simply brutalising all his so called siblings, smiling at them with an arm slung tightly over their shoulder, as he continued to exploit them ruthlessly for resources…...far more ruthlessly than anything he suffered under the boot of Vichy France…...

Alice nods, and tells him that she understands.

For some reason, after this incident, Alice feels drawn to Francis, like a moth to a flame. It seems Francis feels likewise. He starts meeting up with her very often often. They chat, in cafes, and meeting rooms, and in their various houses. They talk about current day events, the headaches of being a nation. But also, about progress made, in making apologies to the nations they’d belittled as colonies; and more importantly, sitting down to listen to these nations for the first time, with an open mind attuned to all the wisdom and the skill that they’d somehow ignored when they were supposedly infallible empires.

It feels a little like forgiveness, when Indira makes jabs at Alice’s bastardized renditions of Indian cuisines, cheeky rather than spiteful, wielding the English language like it’s one of her other hundreds of native tongues (“I may have thrown the Englishmen out of my country, but there’s no need to throw away your language, which I have perfected). Or like the easing of a long-held burden for Francis, when Vietnam buys him some Bahn Mi and urges him to try it. (“It’s a step up from your silly baguettes. Not the first time I’ve beaten you at your own game.”)

Even though it is not quite redemption, because there are still days when certain ex-colonies refuse to look them in the eye, and the nightmares do return to remind them both that some wounds never close.

But still, one day, the House in that forgotten spot in the forest opens up.

It’s Amelia’s suggestion. The feisty American abruptly remembers spending a small bit of her childhood roaming about that House. She immediately declares in the middle of a World Meeting that it would be the perfect location to host the Christmas party — an extravagant traditional English manor house. Alice immediately feels like throttling all the final vestiges of Downton Abbey out of her (just let the damn show die already), but she’s shot down by all the expectant looks thrown her way, and by then the silence on her part has stretched too long to be taken as anything other than consent.

Amelia (the spoilt and ignorant brat) looks immeasurably pleased with herself. Alice buries her face in her hands and groans. But then, she feels a warm hand resting on her shoulder.

“You know, this might not necessarily a bad thing mon cher — you hosting a Christmas Party.”

“I don’t get what you mean, Francis.”

“Perhaps this is a chance for you to try something new. Do something a little different for once, in that wretched House of yours.”

“Oh,” Alice replies, the cogs in her mind starting to spin rapidly. “Well Francis, don’t think for a second that you won’t be dragged into this.”

On the day itself, when the doors of the House swing open for the Christmas party, and all the nations of the world stream in, Alice spots it: something intense in their eyes, especially for the ex-colonies, who seem to pause for a moment to take a look around them. For one heart-stopping second, Alice thinks that it’s because it’s all not enough. She can tell her co-host standing beside her, Francis, is suspecting the same, because his face is panicked and pale. But then, as the different nations start to move about to different parts of the manor, Alice hears Francis let out a soft breath in relief. And she too realises that what’s burning bright in their eyes is recognition. The South Asian nations have gravitated towards the rangoli designs on the floor, cheerily critiquing the Christmas themed patterns that have been drawn out using brightly coloured flour. The Philippines seems even more radiant than usual, as she bring along the other Southeast Asian nations to bask under the light of her parols — one of her favourite Christmas traditions — great, gorgeous star-shaped lanterns, that represent the Star of Bethlehem that brought the three shepherds to the infant Jesus.

It’s recognition, Alice realises, as she watches Francis — who was in charge of catering — get swamped by other nations, excitedly commenting on the quality of the food that comes from their homes (“You ordered tamales!”; “The injera with wat tastes exactly like it should!”). Alice imagines herself in their shoes — walking into a Christmas party for the first time without the sensation of intruding into an event that feels alien, and strange, and blatantly White European; but something more comforting and familiar — Christmas as it is truly celebrated by their own citizens, with a twist infusing local customs with the spirit of Christmas.

And once again, Alice becomes aware of all the faces looking out at her, still hidden behind the drapes that she and Francis had hastily put up before the party. The faces that she had etched in a manic state, bearing witness to what her Empire had taken away, and what it still has to give back, even if it no longer exists anymore.

Alice knows, as one of America’s poets say, that she contains multitudes. That she is many different people all at once; and that some part of her will always be sick with the desire to hoard, and to possess and to conquer. And she will always be responsible for the mistakes that she has made, and the cruelties that she has inflicted. Not just by reining in the darker side of her personality, but also actively trying to make it up to other nations. She thinks of all the ghosts that drift about her mind and Francis’, that appear in their dreams and their nightmares. And decides that it’s okay that the two of them will always be haunted by the past. Maybe both she and Francis have grown, enough for their souls to buzz alive both with these ghosts and the magic of the world.

Especially when they can find a bit of magic in each other, in how they’re both trying to change for the better, and make amends for past wrongs. Alice takes another look at her co-host, who catches her gaze, and smiles back at her. Francis is beautiful like that, with the lights glinting off his hair, and his eyes sparkling with conviviality. It’s definitely more than enough to dull the memories of when those eyes and hair reminded her more of swords and lightning. Certainly soft enough to draw her back to the earliest and brightest days, when it was just the two of them — tiny nations against the world; to start telling their story from there, and blur out the times when they were less than civil with each other; as her eyes trace a line from his blue, blue eyes...down the ridge of his nose...to his red, red lips...

Suddenly, the room bursts into an uproar, snapping the both of them out of the reverie with a jerk. Alice barely makes out the words, “Kiss! Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!” being chanted by the entire room. She looks up and sees a single sprig of mistletoe, innovatively and skillfully catapulted exactly above their heads, with just enough sticky foodstuff smeared onto it so it’s stuck to the ceiling.

“Seriously?” Alice shouts. Amelia, the literal incarnation of the devil, whoops and waves, shouting, “Merry Christmas, enjoy your gift.” Everyone else cheers, bending over in laughter.

Francis laughs too, before turning to her and asking, “Well, shall we give it a go?”

“If you insist,” Alice replies, blushing. Before Francis has a chance to respond, she cups one side of his cheek with a gentle hand and kisses him.

It’s a sweet, chaste kiss. There’s a flutter in her chest, and she feels a thrill pass through the both of them. At the back of her mind she registers Amelia letting out an earsplitting whoop — really, Alice, will have to strangle her later — but for the most part she’s absorbed in the feeling of Francis’ soft lips against hers, the intoxicating scent of Francis’ cologne tickling her nose. Then Francis’ tongue makes a quick swipe at her lips — and well maybe the American deserves to live a little longer, if her nosiness leads to this…...

They part for air, smiling so hard their cheeks hurt. By all means, Alice considers this a damned good kiss. Especially, when it’s framed by the applause of the rest of the world, giving them their blessings.

It feels like a great start. The both of them are no longer hegemons looking down upon the rest of the earth. Instead, they’re living shoulder to shoulder with the rest of the world, living and loving in a House that has transformed from a trophy room collecting dust, to a place where all the world feels at home.

Now, as the centerpiece of the the drawing room in the House, there is still a map of the world.

But this time it’s a little smaller, with no imperial flags, or red markings. It does not come with battle plans on how to pillage and conquer.

It is simply one of those scratch maps sold in curio shops, where you’re supposed to use a coin, and scratch

It’s a honeymoon gift Amelia and Madeline got for Francis and Alice.

These days, nations have a tendency to crowd around it, and point to different locations, suggesting that Francis and Alice go there next.

“Try coming to India,” Indira tells the two of them. “Don’t just come for the Taj Mahal. The Ajanta caves are as much, if not more impressive. And there are many more sights to see South of India, that tourists usually miss out.”

“Try coming to China,” Yao Wang badgers them. “The West Lake in Hangzhou is a classic. Also I’m sure you know our food is amazing”

At this the two of them usually laugh, and protest a little, reminding the others that they’re still nations with duties; they don’t have so much time and money to go sightseeing all the time.

But at least, when they’re too cash-strapped to catch the snow-peaked caps of Mt Fuji, they’ll settle for sharing a cup of vanilla ice cream. When there’s not enough time to relax to the sound of the waves kissing the shore, they’ll listen to the ebb and flow to the rhythm of each other’s voices. When they’re together, Alice feels like she’s already won the world entire.

At this, the tendrils of want and desire that have always wrapped around Alice’s heart deaden, and relax their hold.

#fruk #fruk-net secret santa #fem!EnglandxFrance

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