usxuk | Fiction: Zenith Star

Title: Zenith Star (1/?)
Genre: General/Eventual Romance/Family
Pairing(s): UKxUS (Toddler!US in this chapter)
Rating/Warnings: This first chapter is pure G, though I feel I must warn you of the insane amount of WAFF this contains. Seriously. You will get cavities. Is using both their human and nation names a warning?
Summary: A series of moments set throughout history, each one changing the dynamic of two nations' relationship.
Author's Notes: I tend to write slice of life fictions more than anything else, so if you're looking for a concrete plot you are very likely to be disappointed. Also, I will write a fiction of their choice for the person who can tell me why I picked Zenith Star as the title. Go ahead and google for it...I'm curious if anyone will get it. *laugh*

Canterbury, 1650 A.D., September

The last of the dew was fading from the leaves of the hedge maples as Arthur opened the back door of his house and blinked into the midmorning sunshine. It had been days since they’d seen any sun, the countryside besieged by a constant misting rain, so it was nice to be able to get outside and smell the delicate perfume of blooming heather rise up around him. A pair of doves cooed appreciatively in the distance, the clattering of a carriage out on the road the only intruding sound on his tranquility.

Or at least it had been.

“Alfred!” Arthur scolded as the small blond rushed hurriedly past him and out into the yard, nearly knocking him off balance and onto the ground in the process. “Manners! Wait until I’ve got through the door first!”

“Sorry!” Alfred called back without looking, reaching out his small arms to their English Setter Emily as she came bounding up to him and stole his attention. The dog quickly bumped the boy to the ground, bathing him in wet affection until he was giggling madly and shouting into the morning hush. Arthur smiled at the picturesque scene and stooped down to pick up his basket of gardening tools near the rose-covered arbor, pausing briefly to take a sniff of one of the blooms. The petals were still beaded with morning mist, still smelled fresh and cool and tickled against the bridge of his nose. What a perfect day…

Damp earth squished up between his bare toes when he stepped out into the soft grass, absentmindedly running his fingers through his unbrushed hair. He hadn’t even bothered to dress properly as he wasn’t expecting company, wearing only his breeches and a loose linen shirt that he pushed up to his elbows before kneeling down next to an unruly patch of heather near the center of the garden. It had been planted to decorate the base of a sculpture he’d commissioned the previous year; a magnificent six-foot bronze statue of St. George perched upon his noble steed. He’d been a bit insulted with the unseemly price of the commission at first, but all complaints had been washed away upon seeing it completed. It was grand, truly grand, glittering in the sunlight like a beacon, tall and proud. It made him feel…patriotic.

It was also quite an ordeal to polish correctly, as he’d discovered the first time he’d attempted to do so. After going through a yard of cloth, a pound of flour, five cups of salt, more vinegar than he’d thought he owned and three dislocated fingers, he’d decided he could afford to have someone come out to take care of it from that point on.

“Who’s that?” Alfred’s voice beside him was startling; Arthur cursed under his breath as his pruning scissors slipped and sliced into his index finger. He quickly brought the wounded digit up to his lips and sucked on it.

Arthur would have been angry with the boy had he not been so absolutely adorable, staring up at the statue of the saint with a slack jaw, blue eyes impossibly wide. The dumbfounded expression, coupled with Alfred’s ingrained obliviousness, made Arthur chuckle. The damnable thing had been there the entire summer long, and Alfred was just now noticing its presence in the garden.

Sighing softly, Arthur poked Alfred directly in the middle of his forehead with an undamaged finger and smiled when the boy crossed his eyes to look at it.

“That is my patron saint, George.”

Alfred looked confused for a moment, glancing from the statue to Arthur’s face then back again, his brow line settling into deep thought. Multiple emotions flashed across his face until finally he beamed up at England, pointing his small thumb into the middle of his chest with a winning smile.

“So…you have a hero! Who’s mine?”

“Well, you don’t have one,” Arthur said wistfully, laying his scissors to the side. America’s face fell. “But you will,” he amended quickly. “You’re just too young to have a patron saint yet!”

“Oh.” Alfred pouted, jutting out his bottom lip before sitting heavily on the ground, arms and legs crossed moodily. “Hey, what did your saint do that was so special? Was he really a hero?”

Arthur pressed a hand into the middle of his chest melodramatically and rolled his eyes, pretending to mutter some sort of prayer under his breath. When he looked back down Alfred was smiling again, arms uncrossed and leaning towards him with childish curiosity. “Can it be that I’ve never told you the story of the Noble Saint George and his battle with the wicked dragon?”

At Alfred’s headshake, Arthur continued.

“Well, once, long ago,” Arthur began, then stopped to clear his throat and put on his best stage voice, “there was a terrible and mighty dragon that had made its nest at a bubbling spring near the town of Silene.”

“Was it blue and breathed fire?!”

“It can be whatever color you’d like Alfred, and of course it breathed fire…it was a dragon.” He cleared his throat again, raising an eyebrow towards the boy as a signal to keep quiet.

“Legions of men had been lost battling him, bodies hurled bloody and broken upon the walls of the beast’s cave, never to be seen again. So many had been lost that the good people of the town had given up hope altogether and resorted to assuaging the creature daily in order to gather their water.”

Alfred slowly scooted forward until his tiny knees touched England’s own, the two of them sitting cross-legged in front of one another. “Ass…assuag…what did they do?” he whispered, both of his hands coming to rest on one of Arthur’s feet.

“Each day they would offer him two sheep from their fields, trussing them up outside his cave to keep the dragon’s attention for a time…but that didn’t last forever.”

“It didn’t?”

“No, and soon the supply of sheep had run completely out and they began offering young maidens to it instead, sending them up to the base of the mountain to be devoured!”

Without warning, his lap was filled to overflowing with trembling child, America’s baby-fine hair brushing at the base of Arthur’s chin and tickling up into his nose. Craning his neck so that he could look at the boy’s frightened face, Arthur smiled encouragingly and wrapped his arms around him. “Are you all right? Should I continue?”

“Is there a happy ending?” Alfred asked with a tremble in his voice, peeking out through the billowing folds of England’s shirt.

“Indeed there is.”

“Okay then.”

“Many maidens were sacrificed to the dragon before at last there were none left other than the daughter of the King himself, and though he pleaded for her life to be spared, she too was sent to the dragon’s lair.”

Alfred was looking up at him with wide eyes, attention rapt and focused, teeth nibbling at his bottom lip. “Oh no,” he breathed, snuggling more securely in the nest of Arthur’s arms.

“Yes, but it was upon this most terrible circumstance that the noble Sir George happened upon the scene, having come there by way of his worldly travels. And do you think that Sir George would allow a maiden to be eaten by a dragon?”

“No!”

“Of course not,” Arthur agreed, shaking his head and waving a finger back and forth. “And so with nothing but his great white stallion and his lance Ascalon, he rode bravely into battle to face the dragon and save the princess from certain doom.”

Seeming to think on this, Alfred stood up on Arthur’s thighs so that they were facing each other and steadied himself against the older nation’s shoulders. “Didn’t he even have a shield? Heroes always have a shield!”

“Well…he didn’t need one.” Arthur wrapped his arms around Alfred’s tiny waist to make sure he didn’t fall and smiled softly.

“Why not?” Alfred cocked his head to the side, lips pursed and eyebrow raised.

“Because Alfred, Sir George was a warrior of God. He didn’t need a shield to protect himself from evil.”

“So…God was there?”

Mouth floundering for a moment, Arthur eventually laughed and fell backwards into the cool grass, letting Alfred slide down to sit comfortably on his stomach. “God is every--We need to go to Mass more often, love. We’re both becoming demoralized heathens.” He reached up and tapped at the tip of America’s nose.

“Didn’t we get kicked out the last time?” Alfred’s brow scrunched, his gaze sliding to the side, cheeks coloring rosily. England cringed. The last time they’d gone to church had ended in near tragedy, though all Arthur really remembered through his haze of humiliation was wine flying in every possible direction, a mostly containable fire, and more bats than he’d ever thought could possibly live in a belfry. In fact, he’d just finished paying off the damages the incident had incurred that previous autumn.

Maybe they’d be better off to skip it.

“Indeed, well then, where was I?”

“Sir George was fighting the dragon!”

“Yes!” Arthur nodded readily, grateful for the distraction from sour memories. “But not before protecting himself with the sign of the cross.” He raised his index and middle fingers up to Alfred’s forehead, making a slightly exaggerated gesture down to his chest before ending with a short tickle to his belly. Alfred giggled appreciatively.

“And so, thus armed, he charged the dragon and slew him in a single blow!”

Arthur delighted in Alfred’s squeal of surprise when he picked him up and tossed him gently onto his back, burying his face in the younger nation’s soft neck with a playful, not-quite-dragon sound. America began squirming immediately, joyous laughter tumbling from his lips as he kicked his tiny feet in any direction they would fly, barely missing England’s stomach. Arthur took a moment before pulling away to breath in the sweet baby smell that still permeated Alfred’s skin, wishing he could freeze time just long enough to get his fill of it.

“He won! Heroes always win!” Alfred exclaimed with a bright smile and sparkling eyes, slightly out of breath from having been laughing so hard. “What happened then?”

“Sir George continued his travels,” England said with a shrug, sitting up to pull America into his lap again. “But not before giving away all the money the king had given him as a reward to the poor, telling him to always remember the less fortunate.”

“That was nice! So…if he’s your patron saint, does that make you a hero too?”

England felt his cheeks heat up a bit as he recalled things in his past that were definitely not what one would consider “heroic”, though he definitely wouldn’t be admitting that to his little charge. Instead, he merely waved Alfred’s question away and set the boy to his feet, patting him in the middle of the back a few times with a congenial laugh.

“I have had my moments,” he answered cryptically, giving America an encouraging nudge towards Emily, who had all but destroyed his gardenia bush. She looked up as though knowing she’d been caught, her front paws and nose covered with deep brown dirt. “Go distract Emily, would you? Look what she’s done to my flowers.”

“Emmiiillyyyy!” Alfred hollered loudly, lowering his voice in a way that Arthur assumed was supposed to be intimidating. It failed miserably, but adorably. Emily must have thought the same, because instead of cowering in fear at his approach her tail began wagging ecstatically the moment Alfred attempted to chastise her. “Bad girl!”

The sounds of a great battle between boy and dog ensued, and England had just put on his favorite pair of gardening gloves (the off-white ones with the lace around the cuff that he’d die of embarrassment if anyone ever saw) and resumed clipping at the heather when a quiet question from behind drew his attention once again.

“So…how do you know it was real? I mean, Saint George. The dragon. All of it. How do you know?”

England smiled knowingly and glanced over his shoulder with a wink. “How…because I was there Alfred…because I was there."

I really hope everyone enjoys this. I had a lot of fun writing it, as it was my first jaunt into this fandom. I had hoped that it would be finished in time for Father's Day, but alas it was not. Many thanks to