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historia-vitae-magistras · 2 days

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A lightee ask than usual but do you have any food or eating habit thoughts?

Ooohooohh, I did a whole ass seminar on the history of food. Failed it because I almost bled to death but I got to keep all the material! I've got.... a lot of thoughts and feelings about food culture. Too goddamn many, tbh. This got really long so I'll have to do a part two for other characters if wanted but lol enjoy.

Alfred:

—Actually pretty gourmet little shit when he's got time and effort. He's made food Maria loves so often she has to give up on pretending she didn't enjoy it because fucking hell, he makes good chilaquiles after they've been drinking and fucking. There is, however, a non-zero chance he hasn't eaten a vegetable since the Nixon administration.

—With that combustion engine metabolism, he's also perpetually hungry, so he eats whatever is around him. His guts do not like this, especially when it's a lot of dairy.

—He has that kind of lactose intolerance that's tied to his health and stress, so if he's been particularly freaked out lately, he'll remind the world of his nuclear arsenal when he's got to use the toilet after that triple cheeseburger with a side of deep-fried cheese curds.

—He's a stress eater too. He eats every negative emotion he's ever had especially when he's trying not to binge drink or do drugs.

—He’s exceptionally food-motivated. They didn’t call one of his first major historical eras ‘the starving time’ without reason. He has preferences, but food is also food, and he’ll genuinely enjoy it in most forms as long as it's not rotten or otherwise godawful. Cowboy coffee and beans for ten days straight, and he will genuinely be the only man on that cow trail not sick of it by the end.

—This also goes into why he’s so generous with food. He’s big on homemade food. He’ll make a whole big ass batch of like some sort of mac and cheese, and all the neighbours will get a big ol’ bowl of it with an ‘oh just return the Tupperware whenever,’ and it will genuinely be one of the best things they’ve ever eaten in their lives. Europeans recoil in horror, but our portion sizes are almost never single servings. It’s a generosity and hospitality practice except drinks. He really will down like a 2 liter of Slurpee in a single sitting.

—He doesn’t mind eating alone. Actually prefers it sometimes. He loves eating in his car. American frontier culture, especially mountain men, had an often hyper-individualized, almost mythic culture of spending long periods alone in the woods and not being very sociable; thus a lot of situations where single servings were a thing, eating alone in quiet without something to do can be a real goddamn luxury.

—He’s a really big protein guy with his metabolism. Sometimes exists on protein shakes but is more often a beef or barbeque or ham or alligator jerky. And a somewhat chunky Alfred is a healthy Alfred. A perfectly cut no flab Alfred is an Alfred who might be severely dehydrated and on several kinds of uppers.

—He has better tastes than Arthur who didn't really realize food was supposed to taste good until like ten years ago but his combinations can be equally wild and unappetizing as they are batshit tasty.

—He loves spicy food. He's got so many opinions about hot sauces.

—He’s always hungry. If he isn’t hungry or turns down food, its genuinely a bad sign. If he turns down anything or just is just picking at it his food alarm bells should be sounding. He’s either about to declare war or puke all over the table or keel over dead. Peckish or food coma is his default state. Like if he was a smaller guy someone would say he’s got a binge disorder but he’s tall and beefy so he’s pretty okay.

—Incredibly adventurous eater too. People will assume since there’s that old school culture of Anglo-American who eats the same 7 meals every week and might keel over dead if the meatloaf is slightly different he’ll be a bit hard to please but then he’s absolutely charmed by everything from Korean kimchi to Lithuanian Lašiniai.

—He loves anyone who feeds him, just got to be a bit careful because he’s got surprisingly delicate stomach for the world superpower.

—That American obsession with authencity means he’s surprisingly good at remembering people’s food culture or eating norms. He figured out chopsticks in ten seconds and quickly picked up the cues and manners of eating in any given culture. Still struggles with modulating his voice and personality, so he can often come across as rude, but he's so excited to do so. It's almost frustrating how happy he is to try and adapt to people around him and how happy he can be to fit in.

Matt:

—He's a very good cook when he's putting in effort for other people, but he's not really like Alfred, who he'll make a whole ass meal for one just to relax on a Sunday.

—He does tend to eat more vegetables than Alfred, but only because his northern vitamin deficiency has him binging them when he can afford them or they're available during the summer.

—He can be weirdly picky on his own, but no one ever really needs to ask about his favourite food or how he likes anything because he always just goes with the flow around other people. “Just get me whatever you’re getting.” comes out of his mouth often.

—There's a lot of sour cream/crema and yoghurt/coconut milk involved when he eats Mexican or Indian food for as much as he loves it.

—Katya was singlehandedly responsible for his ability to maintain a normal weight during the 20th century by adding rye bread and perogies/vyrenki to his diet. He craves mushroom-umami flavours when he misses her, which is most of the time.

—When he’s normal and eating the Anglo-North American diet, but he isn’t always eating it, he gets some strong sugar cravings, especially when he’s west of Manitoba. He’s as fond of birch syrup as a flavour as he is maple; there’s just less production. But the kind of deprivation he got and his own tendencies to not eat sometimes cause white sugar to just straight-up burns.

—There's very much something of François to Matt's dietary habits, but less in his personal tastes and more in that he might be more sensitive to flavours. He has that kind of discerning and slightly oversensitive palate, but he’s a shitty perpetually broke frontier settler colony. He knows better/feels too guilty/is too embarrassed of himself to really indulge it.

—He kept too much of his peasant communalism in his eating habits. Where Anglo-American communities did have a lot of cooperation, communal eating was a special occasion. The norm was based on the individual household. In contrast, French Canadian habitants still technically lived on medieval land plots and owed labour to a lord while also having a culture of seasonal male work, so Matt grew up used to communal ovens and eating most of his meals around others. Later, in Arthur’s jurisdiction, it was usually the same. He got a plate of whatever he was given, and it wasn’t something he had ever had to initiate himself.

—Partially, he's sometimes exceptionally bad at eating when he has to choose to do it himself. Especially since the Americanization of the food culture took hold in the '80s and '90s. Whereas Alfred is food motivated from going without when he was little, Matt learned how to block out physical sensation until he collapsed because it was rare that someone, including himself, cared about what kind of state he was in. He just doesn’t eat at all when he’s stressed or anxious. And now it's his sole responsibility to do so as there aren’t the same community structures. He has a lot of Alfred’s abundance now, all the brunch and BBQ places anyone could ask for, but it hasn’t meshed with his eating habits. His people gave up so much of their communal eating in exchange for various choices and then wondered why they were so lonely. So he’ll just microwave a potato or a packet of Kraft dinner a day for a week straight and wonder why he feels dead because, technically, he did eat something. It’s seriously a miracle he got as tall as he did.

—Feed him nothing but hardtack for three years, and he won't complain until he's dropped dead of scurvy. If Arthur puts some sort of godforsaken mixture of plum sauce or gin-infused spag bol in front of him, he’ll compliment it before he disassociates to get at least some of it down.

#the ask box || probis pateo #hws canada #hws america #meatsack mechanics || the sociology and biology of nations #matthew || my country is winter #alfred || o beautiful for spacious skies

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historia-vitae-magistras · 3 months

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i’d never even considered how the civil war would affect alfred during ww1, that’s a really interesting idea. would you mind expanding a bit more if you haven’t already?

fuck yes I can expand on that. TW for historic nastiness.

Okay to prelude— I don't typically do 1:1 state/gov to character but considering the cession of the south into a separate state and the US itself is the Union, my boy is in blue. In this blog's universe there is no schizophrenia or split personality or Doppelgänger or any other representation of the south. It gutted him and he lost feeling in a lot of his usual area and it severely weakened him but he represented the United States and that means union blue. And considering the north really doesn't have all that much moral leverage on the south especially in matters of racism, it's not much of a jump. If you aren't crazy about that, look away now.

So. Trench warfare. It's as old as humans bashing each other's heads in. Defensive ditches are an archaeological feature across the applicable world. But it's the American Civil War that might hold the gold medal for largest gap between how technology designed to kill had advanced spectacularly over any innovation that might save lives. I won't say deadliest because you do have the Taiping Rebellion around the same time but a lot of that was sièges and counter sieges and river based naval engagements. But anyway— rifled artillery and direct fire techniques had changed the game and soldiers were driven underground behind parapets and sandbags. Around Petersburg especially. And it's towards the end of the war when the Confederacy is increasingly desperate and hand to hand fighting is getting more common and more brutal. Entire regiments were lost in hand to hand mêlée. And if a soldier didn't die instantly, it was off to a field hospital. Guts ripped open by iron shells, lungs hanging from the tips of bayonets, wounds so infected they glowed, limbs hacked off by a surgeon who hadn't washed his hands in six days and sepsis rot so foul someone can taste it on the air even with the mouth closed. Malaria and typhoid so fucking bad the army cots would literally shake apart from how bad men shivered when the chills aspect of the fever cycle hit. I know it's fashionable right now especially on vintage fashion YouTube to say people in history weren't disgusting but like, I've been in archives for years. Yeah it fucken was. Never was medicine so far behind the ability to kill.

So Alfred's probably died a solid dozen times half of which from shitting himself because he's probably riddled with parasites. He's been shot, stabbed, slashed. Shaken, rattled and absolutely steam rolled. And the final part of his almighty trauma is this is happening just up the river from where he was born in Jamestown. Alfred is on his belly in the earth beneath the feet of the people that bore him and then rejected him, begging his Protestant God and any of his own people listening and the very earth itself to protect him, to keep him alive as shell after shell lands around him.

When every battle is over, the dead rot in piles across the fields and trenches. The famous photos of the Antietam and Gettysburg dead are days old, you can see some of the bodies had been looted. There were so many dead and so many dying that upon its tardy entrance into world war one, the US had a more coherent body management and disposal program than any other of the entente powers. Who had already been at war for nearly four years.

So yeah, in my opinion he got ten steps into a front line trench where the British and especially the French were just causally walking on bodies, he vomited so hard New York felt California rattling around in there and said fuck it. My boy was either off to cleaner pastures like Belleau Wood or the air corps. It was too much too soon and he just couldn't keep it together in those conditions. They knew what bacteria were by WW1 and he was a burgeoning world power. So he probably only went full himbo with dysentery twice in France so it wasn't as bad as his civil war flop era but oof. That smell, the screams, pressing himself into soil that is not his own yet again is too recent and too vulnerable. He can't do it again so soon.

#the ask box || probis pateo #hws America #meatsack mechanics || the sociology and biology of nations #I'm back #broke my tablet lol

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historia-vitae-magistras · 5 months

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41. “Sleep. I’ll keep you safe.”

This one hurts so good

Unedited fic is unedited. Set in 1918, at the end of the war when Matt is trying to limp his way through the absolute slog of shit that was the proto-blitzkrieg of the last months of the war. Alfred is trying to pretend he's not avoiding trench duty at the Meuse–Argonne because of the trauma of the American Civil War. I was inspired by my Canadian great-grandfather coming home with American buttons on his coat instead of British or Canadian maple leaves that I inherited and made into earrings, lol.

October, 1918

“Give me a hand, Mattie, fuck.” Alfred cursed all the way up as the tailgate of the troop truck dropped. He was stuck on the single cobblestone that managed to give any traction under the three inches of mud. But it may as well have been concrete, for all he could leverage himself out. In the silvery light of the following truck waiting for its turn to round the corner of the checkpoint, Matt was only a hunched-over figure and a pair of gloved hands that grasped him by the wrists and managed to swing him free. His pack landed with a thud ten seconds before he did, and he was pulled roughly to his feet, and his ass finally found a bench. Almost instantly, the cold wood bit through his layers. Matt had disappeared down the benches and into the dark shelter of the canvas cover.

A‌ soldier, looking beat to shit, offered him a light, and he handed out cigarettes, bribing his way into goodwill. They were all lightly dusted in snow, and sleet battered collars turned up even as it got dryer.

“You’re under Lieutenant Williams, yeah? Where’d he get too?”

Weary soldiers nodded up under the cover.

“Mattie!” Alfred handed his cigarette to another man and cupped two hands over his mouth to shout over the engines. “What’re you avoiding me for? Get your sorry ass down here before I‌ start telling embarrassing stories about you.”‌

No response, no movement. Soldiers looked confused.

“Well, kiddo, guess I’m just going to have to start telling folks about—”

“Just what the fuck is so important—”‌ Matt appeared, just like that, steadying himself on the shoulder of one of his men. They glanced up, a little protective, a little annoyed. Alfred didn’t register it. Matt was a trembling pillar, his face a bright, sharp point above his uniform like a flame over a candle dyed dark with soot.

“You look like shit.”‌ Alfred raised a hand to grab Mattie’s shoulder and he slapped the hand away with a dark expression. The message was clear. He was a leader here, an officer of the ‌British army, not Alfred’s baby brother. Another word and Alfred would be tossed off the back of the truck to enforce the silence.

"Don't use me as a distraction to get out of combat." Matt snapped and disappeared back under the canvas, and Alfred let him. At least it was warmer there. He wasn't avoiding anything.

Soldiers stared at him, and he felt sweaty despite the fall air. He wasn't avoiding anything. Just because he'd had six planes shot out from under him in as many weeks and the thought of another stint in a trench made him want to die didn't mean he didn't care. He offered up cigarettes with a smile, bribing his own Americans up with him.

“Headed up to the line anyways,” He made small talk with the soldiers around him, as popular for his cigarette supply as he was for the chocolate constantly in his coat pockets. Some of them were Americans, volunteering before the US joined the war. Boys from New York, Wisconsin, and other places had easily slid across the border without needing real paperwork. The convoy slid north on the icy roads, following the advance to leapfrog ahead of the infantry currently on the front line and pushing forward to relieve the men presently fighting their way back into Belgium. He dozed between them, one of them. He didn't much like his own under a British flag, but it felt... Solid somehow, that it was with Matt. At least it wasn't the sour old fart. He was thinking about Christmas when he was startled awake.

He awoke to coughing. Everyone had a bit of one, the rough soldier’s coughs that everyone had at some point. But this was horrible, and it was constant, drawing into someone’s lungs. And he recognized it. Alfred was instantly on his feet, weaving through the legs of sleepy men. He flung open a canvas flap and took the lantern swinging on the canvas, support in hand.

Matt was sitting, barely supported between two soldiers, his helmet off, the pale of before replaced with a violent flush, mouth open to breathe, trying to suck in air. His chin was tucked into his chest, and the coughing had not stopped.

“You don’t look so good, sir.” One of the sergeants said. Matt looked up.

“Just cold.” He said, trying to smile. “Everyone’s just cold. We’ll get moving and warm up, eh?”

The laugh he forced just turned into more coughing. Alfred stood there, lantern in hand. The soldiers around Matt looked protective, staring at him like he was an enemy they needed to hide their vulnerable commander from. Then, one sidled up to him. A boy from Wisconsin with a crop of ruddy curls. He pat Alfred on the arm and knew instantly he was a mechanic’s son from Green Bay, nestled right against Canada’s belly on the Great Lakes.

“We took the edge of a gas shell last week, and he’s been coughing like that since. Won’t listen to anyone and get a rest because there’s a shortage of officers.”

“Christ’s sake,” Alfred muttered. He sidled between bodies and inserted himself between his brother and one sergeant. He popped Matt’s helmet on and got close. The professional kind of close, resisting the urge to cradle Matt like he had their entire lives.

“There’s a casualty clearing half a mile up the road. Get fed, get dry, get some sober sack time, and I’ll make sure I get you in a goddamn staff car and back up the line before they’re assaulting anything, all right?‌ Hand to God, I‌ will get you back up here if you get some fucking rest.”

Matt was still, sweating now and fading to pale. He was shaking. And then he nodded.

“Hallelujah, you stupid bastard.” Alfred muttered.

He got Matt down the end of the truck as it jolted along, hands under his brother’s arms. His coat flapped open, and Alfred batted it away from him, annoyed.

“Button your fucking coat before you get pneumonia.”‌

A deep, curdled-chest cough was his response.

“Can’t.” Matt gasped. “Got caught on a bit of wire while we were digging funk holes, tugged right off.”

Alfred sighed.

“Okay, you poor dumb fuck. Give it here.”

Matt looked confused, and Alfred resisted the urge to feel his forehead. Instead, he shrugged his great coat off.

“Swap me.” He said. Matt just stared. Alfred huffed.

“You’re freezing.”

“I’m used to it.” He said and crossed his arms over his unfastened coat. “I‌ was fucking born cold, I’ll die cold, and there’s not fuck all anyone can do about it in between.”

“Except give you a decent fucking coat you melodramatic shit.” Alfred was this close to smacking upside the head. He felt guilty for even having the thought as Matt exploded into coughing again. He dipped forward, collapsing into the bench at the far end of the truck bed, and Alfred gripped him by the waist, suddenly frightened he’d vomit or tumble over the tailgate and into the mud-churned roads. He pulled him back and took the opportunity to pull his coat off and wrap him in the better American one. Matt glared the entire time, but words were constricted by the endless wheezing when he went to speak. Alfred shoved his arms into the coat sleeves and buttoned it up, the American eagles shining in the lantern light. Matt glared daggers for a split second before he dragged in an inhale so violent he gagged. Every other soldier in the truck looked away. Alfred's chest hurt just listening.

At the next crossroads, American Red Cross nurses half-staffed the Casualty Clearing Station, and Alfred gave their commander his best, crooked, beaming smile and a wink. They gave him one of the visitor’s huts with a stove, a corrugated roof and two cots with clean sheets. Matt could barely stay on his feet. The mud sucked at his boots, and Alfred hauled him along. He considered picking Matt up entirely but wasn’t fully convinced the brass knuckles he’d mailed Matt years back had been lost somewhere along the way and wouldn’t end up embedded in his kidneys. At least not the way Matt was glaring.

He deposited Matt on a bed, dumped water from the pitcher and wash basin into a tin pot resting on the stove and cranked the stove as high as he could. It’d been almost 200 years since he’d needed someone to boil water and strange herbal plants and shove him and all the steam it could produce under a blanket.

Matt immediately listed to the side like a poorly loaded plane.

“Oh for fuck’s sake.” Alfred hadn’t even sat down yet. “Don’t be stubborn. Just breathe some fucking steam until you don’t sound like you’re about to die.”

“Sorry,” Came a very faint croak.

He frowned and peeked under the wool blanket. Matt had collapsed onto his side, and his eyes were squeezed shut, breathing too shallow to make him cough, but it still didn’t sound like he was getting enough of it.

“Hey.” Alfred pushed what was left of Matt’s damp curls off his forehead. He looked so strange with hair this short. It’d been shorn when Francis gave him up, and the look on him still made him look just as abandoned, even fully grown and in British green. The thought was as gone as quickly as it came.

“You are burning.” Alfred pressed a hand to his forehead. Matt’s eyes hadn’t opened. He made a gentle sound of acknowledgment but didn’t speak, like it didn’t surprise him.

“Have you had the flu yet?”‌

“No.”

“Is this—?”‌

“No.” He said. “This just… happens sometimes. I‌ didn’t take the pills because I just— wanted some sleep.”

Still wearing Matt’s coat, Alfred stuck his hand in the pocket. Unmarked bottles of pills. He only recognized the contents of one of the bottles as aspirin.

“Do I‌ want to know what’s in these?”

“No.”

“Can I ask where you got them?”

“Zee, Uncle Alasdair, Dad.”

“Let me guess, none of them knew who else was giving you what. God I am going to ban everything when we get home. Temperance is just the begin—”

Alfred was feeling uncharacteristically like a responsible older brother, ready to give Matt a whole hellfire and brimstone Baptist lecture for a moment before Matt spoke.

“I’m just glad you’re here.” He found his brother looking up at him, gratitude as evident on his face as misery.

The heavy eyes and distinctly sick flush belied an expression Alfred didn't see often. It came fast on the heels of father's anger or Matt's fear dissolving. Grateful, instantly secure and safe usually snuggled up in Alfred's side, burrowed there against his own madness or the household's hostility. He blinked and Alfred felt horrible as he teared up and then exhaled, pushing away the emotion.

But there was still something small to him. “I miss you more when I’m this pathetic. I feel better.”

"I know." Alfred pushed sweaty hair off his feverish face and gave him a tap on the chin. "Get some sleep kiddo, you know I'll keep you safe."

#the ask box || probis pateo #my writing || cacoethes scribendi #hws canada #hws america

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historia-vitae-magistras · 9 months

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Hey there! It's totally cool if someone wants to turn your content into ai. Take it as a compliment! Remember, it's a fandom, you don't own it and we all share and create together, so it's fair for people to have different opinions about your work. No need to get upset, it's all part of the fun and diverse community we have here! Just let others have what they find satisfying.😊

I understand your point. But no. It's not. I'm a part of a community, the exchange of ideas with other human beings is expected. I don't get a say with what other people do with my characters but I'm kind of responsible for what is done with them regardless and to just reduce everything to... Train an algorithm to replicate what I do? The things I make? That's just. It's soulless. I get not everything I write appeals to everyone. That's fine. But you don't get to remove me from the equation of my work. It's not a compliment. Death of the author doesn't fucking apply when I'm right here. I guess I can't stop people if they do it privately but seriously, please. Please think of what you're saying. Because the implication that the author can be translated into AI and removed from the process is just horrific.

This may be arrogant but the reason anyone would like my takes at all is because they come from my heart, head and hands. Remove that and you may as well just use an AI trained on the canon material and leave me out of it.

#the ask box || probis pateo #from my heart and hands || the process of creation

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historia-vitae-magistras · 3 months

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Can I ask why Arthur is your exception to what is otherwise your bisexuality rule? You've shown other relationships besides fruk so I'm curious.

Women deserve better. Jk I do think he's bi, I kind of like engbel especially but much its because my universe stems into the 1980s and Nancy Reagan probably would have tried to gob on some lime and salt nuts if she'd caught a vibe and it's just better for everyone if there are no vibes to catch. He's just sliding towards the mlm version of the Kinsey scale. Also I think I've been really influenced by how there's this really fascinating string of real people in history who were considered very effete, think dandies or Oscar Wilde types. And they were suspected of sexual activities that were then very illegal. Except sometimes they have a shit ton of rumored bastards and that could often keep them off the radar or out of jail.

I've read the archival material of a lot of men right into modern times who would have a very fake but very intense looking romance with a dying woman who was often their very good friend so he could go a good twenty years before anyone bothered him about producing heirs like "oh the poor man lost his great love let us leave him alone to mourn in his sad bachelor state." Like yeah nah he's been living with his boarding school blow buddy for 30 years. Or gay men who would marry widows quite a bit older than them, adopt her children and spare themselves the act of reproduction. Then be described as being inseparable from their valet who apparently saved their life in the Crimean war or some shit. (They're gay.) In a lot of times and places in history, it was the rejection of the bourgeois respectability and the social responsibility to marry and reproduce that was unacceptable rather than just same-sex love. Or to have children and a household was a very powerful shield against social exclusion or legal punishment.

So yeah, the prickly question of Arthur's sexuality and how it effected family life occupies my brain a lot and not just my shitposts about Matt sleeping in the barn because his parents are railing lmao. How it makes his children, especially Alfred but all of them, social currency. How creating this illusion of a family life forms them and keeps them safe as almost-human creatures with almost human rules in a human world with human rules.

#hws england #the ask box || probis pateo #meatsack mechanics || the sociology and biology of nations #arthur and the children || bilge rat and his bouncing baby bilge rats

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historia-vitae-magistras · 2 months

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25 but specifically for Matthew and Arthur?

25) What other people wish they could change about them

Oh, this one's got some kick. Matt just... God, he wishes Arthur had been just a tiny bit less severe about sucking it up. When Matthew was procured with the rest of the unholy money sink of Canada, Arthur was quite cold. He wasn't cruel but Matt isn't it his. He treats him with the same regard as any random child. He generally likes children but he has one of his own and this little shit is pure 100% distilled François by his measure. He doesn't expect to keep him, much less raise him. The reality that he would end up with him but not Alfred under his roof was unfathomable until the ink was dry on the 1783 Treaty of Paris.

François succeeded with "a son for a son" and Arthur ends up with the one neither of them prefer. So many of the reasons he loses Alfred trace back to Matt. And ignoring him was the best thing he could do. He's not treated particularly bleakly by the standards of the day. He was fed, clothed, and Arthur even acknowledged his existence once in a while but oof, Matt was practically stoned on joy when someone even so much as said his name. He would try silly little things like making conversation or tagging along or just trying to be in the same room. He'd fall asleep in random places and occasionally Arthur would wake him and send him to bed and Matt would sleepily try to snuggle against him and be gently shaken off and told to go find his bed. It annoyed Arthur to high heaven. Combine the influx of loyalists with that breaking him down so much in this period, really grinding him down to little more importance than dirt for the orchids in the green house, Arthur kind of creates the ideal conditions to reprogram Matt. He builds practically the perfect imperial lackey from the ground up. If there was much left of François in his personality, it was largely gone by the time Jack came along. Matt's an anxiety disorder with a nice swirl of people pleasing for flavour more than he is a person.

He's the "easy" child. He never has wants or needs. He goes outside to cry, he curls up and minds his own damn business when he's unwell. He takes his semi-annual pat on the head and makes it last. His own personality and wants only spurt up with his temper flares. He explodes and is more than willing to inflict violence wherever he sees it as his duty to do so. He grows up with his individuality in some negligible margin of his own personality. He becomes a force within the British empire in his own right. He does, eventually, develope a personality that's more somewhere in between who he is and who he needs to be. But he's everything Arthur could ever want in a son. He's still not Alfred, but he's everything anyone could ask him to be. He's easy. He's never a burden, he never complains. He does what he's told and far more.

Fast forward to imperial decline. Matt makes what is in some ways, the transition from Arthur's imperial lackey to Alfred's imperial lackey. But in others, he is properly, really independent this time. And now he's kind of got a dad he can push back on, who he can complain too, who he can let... Parent him. He has a partner who wants to support him. He's standing there with probably the best support network any country could ask for. And he doesn't know what the fuck to do with any of it. He feels plenty free to push back, to disagree. He can build a coalition, negotiate left right and centre. But ask for help? Affection? God no. He'll gnaw his own arm off rather than ask for a hand.

Just like Arthur wanted 200 years ago.

#hws england #hws canada #the ask box || probis pateo #arthur and the children || bilge rat and his bouncing baby bilge rats #matthew || my country is winter #arthur || stone set in the silver sea

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historia-vitae-magistras · 2 months

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Who's Alfred's "person"? does he fully trust anyone to have his back?

Matt. Hell or high water, appendicitis or apocalypse, car accident or catastrophe. Doesn't matter. Matt can be relied upon. Drag him out of a corpse pile at Antietam after he took a chunk of shrapnel to the leg or drive him home because he forgot lactaid and ordered a triple cheeseburger with a side of mac and cheese, Matt's good for it. When I see things get a little too rose-glasses I sometimes compensate for it by making them both pricks to each other because sometimes they are and their relationship can be quite uneven. But there was a reason FDR said "When I have been in Canada, I have never heard a Canadian refer to an American as a ‘foreigner’. He is just an ‘American’. And, in the same way, in the United States, Canadians are not ‘foreigners’, they are ‘Canadians’.

Matt is distinct, outside of him, a force of his own but he's the most familiar thing in the world to Alfred. My god it is hard to quantify just how much two siblings of the same age can rely upon and know each other. They're both wholly formed beings of their own and Alfred has countless important relationships and their lives are so long but no one has held his hand and hauled him to his feet and dusted him off more than Matt has. It takes a goddamn lot to freak Alfred out by now, at his age and life experience but when it happens, nothing's going to bring his adrenaline down the way "I've got you," from Matt does.

Anyone and everyone might hesitate to approach Alfred at certain moments when he's vulnerable or looks enraged or both but Alfred can be flinging tanks around and Matt will still just duck under one like "when you're done throwing a tantrum, I've got coffee and a hug with your name all over it."

#the ask box || probis pateo #alfred and matt || lonely boys with the longest borders

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historia-vitae-magistras · 5 months

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How about dreary?

Nedcan break up fighttttt lmao. This one is also complete.

Amsterdam, 1990.

Jan opened the front door to the dreary day and the nation of Canada standing on his stoop with a shy, hopeful smile.

"I wasn't expecting you!" Jan blurted, taken on the back foot. "You're a surprise!"

"A good one, I hope," Matt smiled. He was dressed warmer than required for the weather, wrapped in his good winter coat, gloves and hat and standing in the drizzle, one hand above his face to keep it dry. Jan stood there, gawking. "Can't I come in?"

"Of course!" Jan said, shaking himself loose of his thoughts and flinging the door open.

Matt stepped inside, peeling off his hat and gloves and moving to give Jan a kiss once inside the privacy of the house.

"What are you doing here?" Jan asked. Matt's lips were fish-cold, and Jan shivered a little before he took his coat.

"I was in Kyiv," Matt said. "And I was feeling a bit more myself, so I called your office, and they said you didn't have anything booked, so I got my connecting flight to Rotterdam."

"Oh," Jan said.

"Is it a bad time?" Matt asked.

"No, no. Just… I've got a flight in a few hours."

"Where too?"

"First leg is DC,"

"Oh?" Matt asked, and they moved toward the living room, Matt's suitcase in the foyer and coat hanging on the rack like a guest. "What's in DC?"

"A layover and a few hours at the Dutch Embassy. They're giving a dinner for the Queen."

"Ah, very official. And then?"

"Another flight."

"Where too?" Matt asked, putting his arms around Jan and smiling. "Where have they sent you off to now?"

"Nowhere," Jan said, kissing his hair. Matt dropped his head on Jan's shoulder. "I took vacation time."

"Did I pre-empt a surprise visit? Matt smiled, kissing him, full of promise. He was still cold, and Jan could only let it happen, full of sadness.

Jan was silent for a moment. "Tokyo, actually."

"Oh," Matt dropped his arms. "Well, that's not great timing on my part; I'm sorry. I must have called before you put it on your schedule."

"It's not scheduled," Jan said. "Personal."

Matthew disengaged. "Again?"

"I haven't been there in months."

"A month," Matt said. "You were there in December, and it's not even February."

"I have something I want to be there for."

"Something?" Matt said.

"A gift. A windmill is going up in Sakura."

"A windmill. Goodness." Matt said. "Does that require you?"

"It's my design, so yes, I supposed it does. I based it on one I had in the 18th century. It's quite a fine design.

Matt huffed. "Lucky Sakura."

"Kiku has been looking forward to it.

"You have to, by the sounds of it."

"I have."

Matt nodded, collapsing onto the sofa. He looked off somehow, something more shadowed about his eyes than usual, his face thinner—probably jet lag.

"Do you want to get some lunch?" Jan asked. "Before I go?"

Matt looked at his hands and swallowed. "Jan, If I asked you to stay, would you?"

"Is there a reason I should?" Jan raised a brow.

"I miss you, love you, and want to spend time with you."

"My flights booked, Matt."

"Right." Matt shut his eyes and exhaled. "Okay. That was bad timing on my part. I'm sorry I dropped in unannounced. I really thought you were free."

"Why don't we get lunch and figure out another time."

"I'm not hungry," Matt said. His jaw tensed, and he looked up at Jan. "When can I expect a visit from you?"

"I'll be over with the tulips, like usual."

"Could you take some time before then? Or could I pop over?"

"Can't it wait until May?"

Matt flexed his hands in his lap. "Does it have to? I miss you."

"I don't think I can take any more time for a few months, but I'll call when I get back."

"Do you miss me when I'm not here?"

"I'm always happy to see you."

"That's not what I asked." Matt returned. "Do you miss me? Because it feels like I haven't seen much of you in a long time."

"I'll be there in May. A whole week."

"How long in Japan?"

'Fourteen days."

"Fourteen days," Matt repeated. "Another fourteen days?"

"December was only 10."

"Only?" Matt spat back and then shut his eyes, exhaling. "Sorry."

"That was for a whole different thing. This is official."

"You just said it was personal!"

"It is! But it's for an event!" Jan said, running his hand over Matt's arm to take his hand. "Come on, let's get some food before I have to go. I'll call you when I get back and I'll see you in May."

"Do you even want to see me in May?"

"I always come in May."

"Do you want to though? You're not beholden to me." Matt stared at his hand, supporting him against the wall rather than at Jan. "We're not married; we're not human. You can do whatever you like."

Jan frowned. "Matt— you didn't even mention you wanted company before dumping yourself on my doorstep. I'm not a mind reader."

Matt squeezed his eyes shut against some sort of pain.

"Matthew, be reasonable. I can't do anything if you don't talk to me."

"You aren't listening anymore when I try. Even when I'm here, you're elsewhere. You had a life before me. You still have a life without me. It's fine. Do whatever or whomever you want."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"It means there were no honorifics when he talked to you. And you still use the formal case when talking to me in public. Because I'm not imp— it's fine. You should go. I'll talk to you when I'm in a fit state."

"You could just talk to me now!" Jan said. "I'm listening now."

"You're already packed," Matt said. "It's fine. I'll go to my Dad's."

"I'm sorry this time didn't work out," Jan said, scrubbing his face. "But you didn't tell me you wanted to see me until 10 minutes ago."

"I tried in December. You were in Japan." Matt smiled wanly, and Jan wasn't sure he'd ever seen him look so hollow. "I tried. I tried talking to you. But you don't return my calls, and that time you were unreachable and in Japan, and now you're on your way there again."

"Matt. There's only a competition where you go and make one. The world's changed, and times change. You have your place with me sometimes, and I have mine with him sometimes. It's not a competition. Just compartments."

"So you can put me in a little box and take me out when you're bored?" Matt sighed through his nose and rubbed his temples. "Just like that?"

"That's not what I said."

"Isn't it?" Matt shot back. "Isn't that what you're doing exactly? I was place holder while you waited for something better! Fifty years ago, you kissed me on VJ day with almost as much relief as VE Day. You kissed me both times. I didn't expect anything from you. But you made me love you. And now you throw that in my face by telling me nothing changed?"

"It hasn't!" Jan shouted. "I love you!"

"Then why aren't you actually here when you lay next to me?" Matt shouted. "Where the fuck are you when I try to talk to you and get only grunts? Why are we always playing phone tag? When I'm trying to make love, and you're closing your eyes? Where the fuck are you, and who are you thinking about? Because in fifty years, we haven't been monogamous, but you never used to close your eyes!

"I buy you flowers every year. I pay attention to you when we're together. But it's not as if we live together. Our lives are long. And complicated. I have feelings for you, for him, for a lot of people. Same as you. Don't begrudge me my life, Matt, Fuck! Its not my fault you're such a fucking child you can't understand this!"

"Oh, I'm a child now?" Matt stood. "It makes me a child that I don't understand how you can do this with him? Of all people?"

"It does! You are a fucking child if you can't understand that. And a hypocrite. Your parents have done far more to each other than Kiku and I ever did."

"How the fuck does that make this okay?"

"Because there was a single war between Kiku and me. One! A single war in 400 years."

"It was the largest conflict the world's ever seen! Ludwig nearly killed you, and Kiku allied with him and they both tried to bring the world to heel. Tell me, should I fuck Ludwig? No!"

"You can if you want! Go, fuck him, love him, let him love you, change! Maybe you'd understand some fucking sense."

Matthew's eyes widened. Jan exhaled and saw his breath. The room had dropped twenty degrees around the personification of Canada.

"Do… do you love him?"

"I did."

"Thats not what I'm asking. Do you love him now? At this moment."

"Yes."

"Fine." Matt exhaled, and the room's temperature rose again. "Fine. Go."

"Matt, don't play the jealous wife. It's beneath you."

"Who the fuck said I was? I just said you were free to do as you liked, didn't I?" Matt smiled again, bitter and fragile like shards of porcelain. "Enjoy your time, Jan."

"…. Will I see you in May?"

"I don't think so."

Send me a word, if it’s in one of my wip documents I’ll answer your ask with the sentence that it appears in

#the ask box || probis pateo #my writing || cacoethes scribendi #Jan and Matt || the bells of liberation echo into eternity #hws netherlands #hws canada

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historia-vitae-magistras · 3 months

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I don't think you've ever gone into much detail on the relationships between Alfred and Zee/Jack. Does he care about them or is it more like an an adult sibling in their 30s suddenly having siblings that are in their teens? Nothing in common and generally don't really speak to each other or feel like they're really related at all. Just some other people that his father calls his children that he couldn't care less about?

It's really not very sibling but it's kind of distantly familial. But mostly they interact as friends. Zee has been very sceptical about Alfred pretty much from the get-go. She met him probably in the early Victorian Era and Alfred interpreted her clinging to Uncle Rhys as shyness, but she was low-key cranky and not having it. It's not that she doesn't like him, because she does. Alfred's impossible not to like especially when he's being genuine. But she's not sure she trusts him. He's ambitious and cunning in that bible salesman kind of way.

But he also has had some moments where he recognizes how Europe rejects both of them for being very obviously on the edge of European hegemony. They might ride a lot of human context of whiteness but empire is a very fucked up cosmopolitan thing so "neither you nor I are entirely European. We're western states but never going to completely European and there will always be a barrier there. Don't bother with them, I've already tried and pushed our limits." made for some surprising commonality with them. He's also had his head in her lap hallucinating and begging for Matt, death or Dad when he was low-key dying of malaria or dengue in the South Pacific. She also, perhaps ironically given their power differences, has given him the biggest fuck you anyone ever has by banning his ships from her ports while not only not escaping punishment but still entirely benefiting from the American security apparatus. He saves the majority of his emotional attachment for Matt but they can have a beer and go surfing without major incident. He certainly trusts her more than she trusts him but like it's just more solid than intimate.

Jack's relationship with Alfred is both more and less fraught. Mostly because of gender. Zee has it harder in a lot of ways being afab and feminine presenting most of the time but that's also made her less concerned about masculinity. Especially the sword clashing virility-as-nationalism they came of age in. The stolid, stoic, takes-his-lashes-silently ideal of British manhood that Jack does not suit. He looks at Arthur and he looks at Matt and he doesn't want to be them. His father's rage, Matthew's senseless martyrdom. He wants that respect, the warriors right to respect as it is. But he looks across the Pacific in the late 19th century and early 20th and Alfred is bright, forward-looking friendly and progressive. He has a navy. He has respect. He has a battle scars waged in the name of glamorous things like freedom and democracy and equality. That's an example of masculinity he likes. Alfred standing on the flag ship's prow, at the head of the Great White Fleet announcing him as the next great power kind of beat Jack over the head with a 'oh I'm a baby I need to grow up and get a navy and be a man and earn respect.' And he does pursue those goals and something of Alfred's version of great power projection. But its also not long before Alfred scares the shit out of him too. The costs of his father' ambitions have always been visible but when Alfred's are revealed to Jack they're shocking and frightening. He doesn't want to be his father and he doesn't want to be Alfred. But sometimes, the blunt imperialism of his father is a little easier to handle than the way Alfred operates as an empire of militant idealism. So while he and Alfred appear to get along very well on the surface, and work together very well while they're at it, there's very fundamental differences to who they are and that keeps them friends, not family.

#the ask box || probis pateo #im just publishing like 6 weeks of drafts lmaooo sorry #Pacific Siblings || freedom and fairness

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historia-vitae-magistras · 2 months

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10 for Arthur and François <3

10) How they deal with pain.

Arthur: Stark, stoic denial. He's kind of a control freak and that primarily manifests itself in his own inability to just admit things. The only thing to fear about the English is a good percentage of them could have a limb hacked off, and they'd still be stiff upper-lipping it and he's certainly one of them. Absolute fucking mental case about it if I'm being real.

François: He has two modes. Repose or Rage. He tries to go for that sort of angelic look of calm, the saintly figure of a martyr's allegory. The Dying Gaul, straight-backed and dignified, sweating and pale but artistically rendered. The artistic subject. Save that, when he's out of sight or just so far past, its pure rage. He gets so fucking mad when he's in pain. He will have one pint of blood left, and he's raging to the point someone should sedate him just on principle.

#the ask box || probis pateo #francois || temperee par des chansons #arthur || stone set in the silver sea

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historia-vitae-magistras · 5 months

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In one of your last posts about Matt and Katya, you mentioned Alfred and Ivan’s dynamic, and that perhaps there is more beyond the hate sex they have had.

Do you mind expanding on that? What is your interpretation of their relationship, if it can even be called that?

LMAO god, gonna make me use the two and a half years I spent special interesting my way through Eastern European history on my way to a degree in 20th Century history, are you? About time I did lmao. Alfred/Ivan is one of those ships I don't enjoy purely as a ship, but it's so compelling. Much too compelling to the history to leave out entirely.

So, at the dawn. You have this old state in Ivan, considered backwards and rural by the Western European imperial powers, which has largely lost its verve for even trying most of the time. He has usurped his sister, who built most of their culture and claimed the power he has from the remnants of several cultures and expanded eastwards. And he comes across this young upstart, similarly held on the fringe of the powers of Western Europe. He's had similar obsessions with Jan when the Dutch Republic was new and a lasting one with François when he was the heart of European culture. Moreover, he's not only interested in and admiring of Alfred and the American experiment, but Ivan likes Alfred. Everyone likes Alfred. It's impossible not to like Alfred. There's an affection and attachment, a kind of love if I want to push. By the 19th century, Ivan wished him success because he and Arthur were locked into the Great Game in Central Asia. He spites Arthur, Matt, and Katya by selling Alaska to Alfred when he and Russia can no longer benefit. He's happy to raise a glass to American success. Alfred was touched by the gestures during his Civil War and the purchase of Seward's Icebox.

Afterwards, things declined quite quickly. Between the end of the American Civil War and the beginning of World War One, over 3 million people from the Russian Empire settled in the United States. But less than 5% of them were ethnic Russians. Most are Jewish, Polish and Lithuanian. Feliks mostly stays in Poland, a firebrand devoted to his survival, but Alfred meets Tolys, and he loves him. He lives with Tolys and his memories, perceptions, and opinions. Matt is up to his tonsils in Katya any moment he possibly can be, with a mouth full of their father's loathing of Ivan and a chest heaving with Katya's life. Alfred is increasingly their father's heir. The Pacific acquisition of Alaska was just the first step. If Alfred is the Christ to Arthur's God and lord knows he thinks of himself as a saviour, the Russian empire just looks shittier and shittier.

But he still has that reputation of being an outsider. He's not quite in with the European powers. He brokers the end to Russia's ultimate humiliation against Japan. Ivan, to a certain if somewhat limited extent, believes Alfred's bullshit. The deal is fairer than he would have otherwise gotten. But this is the high point of the pre-war Kiku, and Alfred's strange, tense and intimate relationship and opinion is still vastly with Japan during the war.

Then comes the Russian Revolution and the Polar Bear Expedition. Alfred is keener to do business with Ivan's new government when revolution breaks out. It must be an improvement over the Tsar, surely. He's not entirely in his complete form yet; he gets looped into the Entente's support, but he's pretty vocal about this thin line of hope that this may go well. The way his revolution went. There's this brief moment where Ivan and Alfred look at the world with a thought to a common future. They're looking at each other again with an ancient hope, maybe some mutual admiration. This may work. Maybe Ivan will get his shit together. Maybe Alfred won't become the heir to Arthur's Great Game. Maybe, maybe.

And then it goes up in fucking flames. Even American leftists became disillusioned with the USSR somewhat quickly. He helped lay down new states in the newly free Eastern Europe; God knows Tolys and Matt are doing their best to keep Alfred on-side. It took almost fifteen years, until 1933, for the US to acknowledge the USSR. Alfred is repulsed by the USSR even if he does cool his jets as interwar isolationism has slowed the process of him stepping into the fray as the head of his family.

By World War Two, Alfred is happy to write his redemption story and just dump treasure and materiel at the USSR. He's the balance of power between Arthur and Ivan, and Ivan is delighted to see Alfred snap at Arthur whenever he fucking pleases. But he's also miserable that he is the one dragging himself on his belly over the broken glass and ruins of Eastern Europe and doing the largest share against the Nazis. But there's a little hope that Alfred and Ivan will rule the world when this is over and find common ground in their power. It's only in the waning days of the war when Alfred's clearly suffering from the campaign in the Pacific and Eisenhower lets Zhukov have Berlin, that they shack up in some way or form. Alfred has more hope than Ivan, but Ivan is at least a little satisfied to see that Alfred has had a piece carved out of his idealism by his war against Japan.

It doesn't last. Alfred might be happy to take Arthur down a notch, but when the crown comes upon his head, as has been arranged, he wears it with a certain ease no one expected. Heavy is the head that wears the crown, but what is the weight to a man who fancies himself Atlas and Prometheus all in one. And it comes with the confidence to hate Ivan's ideas and opinions even as he revels in their fucking. Sex isn't love, and the feelings he gets throughout all of it are not love to Alfred. I still somewhat adhere to the thought that McCarthy almost denounced Alfred as both a communist sympathizer and a homosexual in the 1950s for this apparent attachment, but the intelligence apparatus intervened and prevented it.

And that is where I will leave off because I'm damn near at 1000 words RIP.

#I love how I managed to cover only half the fucking century #rusame #Ivan and Alfred || Atomic Hellfire and Nuclear Winter #the ask box || probis pateo

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historia-vitae-magistras · 4 months

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Christmas fic please?

☺️

The Blue Hour This is somewhat of a sequel to my other 18th-century fics 'When the Heart is Full the Tongue Will Speak" and "The Prison Ship," but it also stands alone. Valley Forge was arguably the worst winter of the war. Alfred's having a bad time. Matt tries to help. He has something for Alfred. This was supposed to be longer, but I had to say fuck it and put it in the queue, or it wasn't happening, so I'm so sorry for inflicting it on you. Apple pie reference is from the HC that Alfred's pie recipe comes from a nice Pennsylvania Quaker lady who took him in in the late 17th century when he was little after the Massachusetts witch crazes. This isn't a happy fic, but it is deeply loving. Also on ao3

Valley Forge, Christmas 1777

Alfred’s legs didn’t feel quite real as he approached the clearing. It was silent here. No animals. No people, either. Even the last chickadees, so faithful through the winter, had disappeared behind him as the previous winter sun faded from a depressing grey to pitch dark. He was a bit numb and more paranoid as he rounded a copse of trees and found himself staring at a pristine clearing. He recognized this house, grey stone with a heavy slate roof. There was no glass in the windows, but cheery, flickering firelight escaped through whatever slight cracks there were in the shutters. He hefted his rifle, bayonet attached, closer and approached, wary. The forest held its breath, and the fire crackling became louder as he approached. There was smoke from the chimney but no shadows of movement inside. He gripped his rifle. He should go home to his haphazard tar paper and log shack, but it was dark now, and Valley Forge was 30 miles behind.

He pushed open the door with a bang, rifle to his shoulder, and heard a surprised shout. A figure twisted, axe in hand, poised to hook it into Alfred’s neck and remove an arm at the shoulder like a branch from a trunk. Then, a note of laughter, and he was embraced.

Warmth hit him. First, Matt’s entire body was warm, and his clothes were fire-toasty. Then the smell of roasting meat floated, so solid it was almost visible, into his senses. Then, dizziness. Dizziness struck like a blow to the head. Alfred might have passed out on the floor if Matt hadn’t already had his arms around him.

Matt squeezed with more strength than Alfred had ever known his baby brother to have. The rifle was tugged from his hands, and he was suddenly sitting, sodden clothes and boots pulled off, feet stretched towards the fire. He might have vomited if he wasn’t so hallowed out. Matt was gone for only a moment, but Alfred grabbed a hold of him as soon as he was back.

“Have you changed your mind?” He grasped Matt’s sleeve with a shaking hand. “Did you come to your senses?”

“Have you?” Matt said, derisive even as he pressed a mug into Alfred’s hands. “Drink that, and the world will stop spinning.”

“Matthew---” He didn’t let go of Matt’s sleeve. “You haven’t come to—.”

“Bend the knee?” Matthew’s eyes flashed, and Alfred was all too aware of the axe on his belt and the rifle against the wall. “No. I’m not.”

“What are you doing here then?” He let Matt go and sipped on the contents of the mug—broth, salty and rich beyond belief. Matt was right. The world did stop spinning.

“It’s Christmas.”

“Is it?”

“It is,” Matt said with a watery smile. “I take it you got my note.”

“Pie at sundown,” Alfred recalled. “I got it. I could hardly believed you remembered that.”

“First apple pie you ever made me. I’ll remember it til the sun goes dark.” Matt was before him with a blanket and a stack of clothes. “Finish drinking that, put these on and then we’ll talk.”

They were his own clothes, what he’d left in the chest of drawers in Boston after he’d slipped his guards and disappeared across the border and into Quebec. He wanted to toss them back. They were the clothes of a crown subject, a boy with a British boot on his neck. Not the free man he wanted to be. That he was, but he hadn’t had a fresh shirt since his baby brother had dragged his corpse out of his shallow grave on the Hudson. He could wash it as often as he liked, but the linen was still wearing thin. His former things were practically new, the linen fresh and clean, the wool still warm. Alfred ran a hand over the fabric, still so chilled he hardly considered his pride as Matt turned away to tend to the bird slowly roasting over the fire and dressed. He glanced over his shoulder when Alfred slipped the shirt over his head. There hadn’t been a mirror to look at himself in months, and he didn’t want to. He knew his ribs were stark; he could feel them. Matt looked that kind of devastated that, if he hadn’t turned away, might have made Alfred cry.

“Have you had a decent meal since I saw you?” He didn’t look over his shoulder again until the shirt was over his head, and he’d buttoned the blue waistcoat over his chest. Everything was so ill-fitting now.

Alfred ignored him. “Does Father know you’re here?”

Matthew snorted. “It’s Christmas; he’s so deep into the officer’s nog when I left he won’t realize I’ve gone unless I’m not there for epiphany morning with tea going. So I shot a turkey and pissed off south to find you. Looks like its a good thing I did too.”

“I’m fine.” Alfred scowled. “There’s a camp of thousands of men 2 miles from here with nothing but rice and vinegar for Christmas dinner. Next to them, I’m all right.”

“I’m sorry,” Matt said, and it damn well looked like he meant it, narrow shoulders bowed as he sat heavily onto one of the overturned logs he obviously meant to use as a kitchen chair for the occasion.

“You could feed a lot of people if you stayed. You’re a good hunter.”

“Don’t,” Matt said. “We’ve had this conversation. Look at you. You know I wouldn’t survive another war like this. You’re kissed by God himself and you look like death.”

“It’s not so bad.”

“Rice and vinegar, eh? Yeah well. Try some turkey and see if it compares.”

“Why do you keep coming to see me if you won’t pick a side, Matt? You’re committing treason and you know it.”

“You’re my brother.”

His shrug was simple, unemotional. The sky was up, the Earth was down, the snow was cold, and Matt would haul and shoot a turkey and walk four days just to sneak him a decent meal. He teared up. Maybe it was the cold, the deprivation or just how much he missed home and heart and heart. Throat working, shoulders shaking even if he wasn’t crying, he grabbed Matt by the shoulders and squeezed for a third time, kissing him on the forehead about a dozen times and just feeling something so desperately affectionate he had to ride it out like dizziness.

“I missed you.” He said.

“You too.” Matt had clamped himself around Alfred, playing as if he just held on; he wouldn’t feel how much weight he’d dropped since summer. After a long moment, he made Alfred sit on one of the logs and tossed the rucksack while he struck flint and steel and put tinder to kindling. “Have you been sick? You look terrible,”

“Everyone is.” He said. There was no point in hiding it. “You know what it’s like. A moving army is a healthy army. A camped army is a sick army.”

“Why do you think I like the woods so much? I could run from the British as easily as from the typhus.”

“Yeah, well, they’re my people. I can’t leave them.”

“Do you have scurvy yet?”

“Gettering there.” He poked his tongue at his teeth. He had all of them, but he was always so tired. It couldn’t be far away.

Matt pivoted and took an orange in each hand, shoving them at Alfred. “Father... he’s in the habit of buying two.”

“I can’t take these!”

“Think of them as reparations.”

“Won’t you get scurvy?’

“I get lime juice twice a day. Just take anything you want out of my pack and eat it. Take the rest tomorrow. I’ll get a rabbit on my way back if I get hungry.”

“Why do you have to go back?”

“Stop asking me that. Pick something for me to make out of what’s in there, all right? Anything you want tonight, and you can take the rest tomorrow.”

“I want you to stay.”

Matt leaned against the wall by the hearth, arms crossed. “And I don’t want to die. So stop asking. That’s the agreement. Stay alive. Not stay with you.”

“You should be my right hand. It should be me and you against the world.”

“You’re the one fighting with the world, Alfred. I already have. I lost. Pick a vegetable, eat an orange, have some wine and stop trying to sentence me to death because you’re lonely again.”

He was tearing up, and so was Alfred. They looked away from each other, and Alfred went to the pack.

He opened food like he had once opened pewter inkwells at the apothecaries, looking for the blue ink he liked better than the quickly fading walnut; there were cranberries, potatoes, apples, stalks of celery, onions, cabbage, carrots, mushrooms, honey cakes, tea, coffee, a jug of wassail and a smaller bottle of Madeira. Smaller quantities of sugar, flour, oats, rice, raisins and rye. There were more of his clothes that he hadn’t taken when he’d fled Boston nearly two years prior. And under all that, a length of blue cloth with shining brass buttons.

“Mattie.... What is that coat?”

His brother froze. He’d been dragging his knife down the side of the roasted bird and onto a rough-hewn platter. For one long moment, Alfred thought he might burst into tears.

“It’s for you.” He said.

“Whe did you get it?”

“General Montcalm.” He said. “It was too big so I hid it under the floorboards. Thought I’d wear it too the victory parade someday. It’s... it’s your colour now, isn’t it?”

“It— Yeah it is.”

“I hope its luckier for you than it was for me.” He said quietly. “I hope Lord Bonnefoy is better to you too.”

“Mattie.” Alfred said quietly.

Matt was standing there, eyes shut against tears, until he looked up at Alfred with those same big, hopeful eyes he’d always had before all this. Full of all the softness and warmth of Canada that may not have existed elsewhere that winter. Words stuck in his throat, and suddenly, so homesick he wanted to burst, Alfred opened his arms. Matt gave up on carving the bird, put down the plate, and allowed Alfred to pull him in again. If Matt had grown, it was only a little, and Alfred could still easily rest his cheek on Matt’s crown, which he did for a long moment.

“Thank you.” He said.

“It was meant for you,” Matt replied. “You’re... tall and capable like that. It will fit you, even when you fill it out again.”

“You’ll grow.” Alfred said. “Someday. And then we'll be fine."

Someday.

#hws america #hws canada #na bros #my writing || cacoethes scribendi #the ask box || probis pateo #alfred and matt || lonely boys with the longest borders #matthew || my country is winter #alfred || o beautiful for spacious skies

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historia-vitae-magistras · 4 months

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Hey, just a heads-up, that anon's got a point – your posts seem to be all about pure misery. no one's ever happy. It's kind of old.

Like I said, if it's not your cup of tea you don't have to like, read or interact with me. Self curate, please.

#the ask box || probis pateo

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historia-vitae-magistras · 2 months

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5, 8, 11, 15 for Mattie if you’re still doing the ask game 🥹

5) A cherished personal belonging.

Baby's first pair of skates are still in a museum somewhere. There's a very playful, puckish part of Matt that's a bit of a hellion even when he's got clothes on. The French Regime had to ban ice skating in the streets because teenage boys kept plowing into priests and then skating away before being caught. Baby Matt cackling as he skates circles around anyone who dares challenge him in his own domain, and adult Matt smirks a bit as he outskates Jan is a rare nice moment I'm willing to grant him lmao.

8) What kind of car they would drive.

I feel like he drove some piece of shit until the government made him replace it with something electric or at least with better gas mileage. Probably something that looks like a clown car with his giant gangly ass getting in and out.

11) This character’s favourite piece or pieces of clothing.

Besides the coffee and cumstained hoodie he's been wearing on and off for two weeks at any given depressive episode? Things that were purchased or made specifically for him. François would purchase and ship clothes over occasionally, or governors or his guardian would be given a budget. Still, the French fabric industry was shit for the wintery needs of a few acres of snow. Mercantilism said there was no legal way to get better wool, so most people smuggled theirs from New York. English merchants made a killing in wool fabric. A shortcut Arthur took to get Matt on his side and keep him there was clothing him. Not so nicely that anyone would mistake Matt for Arthur's child. And as petty as he is, probably unflattering or plain colours Francois would find offensive. But English boots were better than anything produced in New France; they took skates much better, ice skates that the English imported from the Dutch. A solid wool coat, even if it was a shitty colour with buttons, Matt hadn't hacked off in slides from a deer horn himself? That had him very pliable and obedient. He's a bit of a fucken loser (affectionate), and if anyone makes him anything, it will be his favourite item of clothing until it's literally falling apart. He's got a very nice shawl collar sweater with horn toggles that's been out of fashion for 40 years, but he won't stop wearing it for love or money until it's disintegrated.

15) What cologne or perfume they would use

Those around him are lucky when he doesn't smell like roadkill. Probably something incredibly basic though. Maybe something like Zoologist's Beaver (I'm not even joking thats a real thing.)

#the ask box || probis pateo #matthew || my country is winter

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