Family in Darkness - Chapter 1

An Old Chestnut

Soft orange candlelight lit the tile as England finished his observations, the enchanted pen taking notes as he handled the brass measurements. Sickly green light lit the center of the room, dimly caging the wisp with no form. There was barely room for the two of them, Nation and spirit, with the door shut and warded. After a short while- the times for summoning were always short- England took a thin grey powder and placed it through the East and West circles in the array.

At once the green light flared, drowning out all else in the room before dying, extinguishing the wisp with a quiet pop. England waited for a moment to blink the purple spots from his eyes, before sighing and checking on the enchanted pen.

Damn it.

The pen had been on the blink for months and was transcribing at only one quarter speed- although a quick diagnostic found it's memory storage was unaffected. He looked at the clock- 1am. He should have been able to leave the pen unsupervised and go to bed- if he'd fixed it. As he should have done last week. Or the week before that.

But there was nothing to be done about it now, he needed to be awake tomorrow and the chances of a problem were low. He sighed and stood, wincing at the pain that lanced through his head, and trying to blink away the migraine aura that had been flaring on and off almost constantly since the Brexit referendum. The crazy thing was that the meeting tomorrow, the one he needed to be awake for, would inevitably have it come up even if it wasn't on the agenda. He spent a good twenty minutes cleaning away materials and books and finally made a brief trip to the kitchen to get a cup of tea. Even that much made his vision flicker.

He settled on the edge of the bath and lent against the wall. Sipping his tea, he could do nothing but wait for it all to go away.

The shoe sailed through the air in a graceful arc, hanging suspended in the air for the merest moment before falling..

"AHH FUCK-"

And smashed Prussia's nose in a fountain of blood.

"Nice shot." Bangladesh whistled appreciatively as South Italy whooped triumphantly. India grinned and gave it a polite round of applause.

It was three o'clock on a rainy Thursday afternoon in London, four days into their annual global conference. There was nothing to do, no deals to make in this middling no mans land of the week, so the nations were bored and the usual suspects frustrated. And so, inevitably, they fought. Bangladeshl and India kept score.

"Still, you'd hope so with all the practice he gets," he said mildly, and Bangladesh hmm'ed dismissively.

"I should hope so- I mean, how many times has he tried to batter him now?."

They watched as South Italy's attempt to follow up his attack was thwarted by tripping over England rolling on the floor with France in a game attempt to finally strangle him. Italy swore loudly and whirled around to shout at the offending nation, met England's eyes, paled, squeaked an apology, and scrambled in the other direction like a startled rabbit. England gave his retreating back a confused look, then looked at France. France looked back and shrugged. They went back to trying to murder each other.

Bangladesh snorted. "If he really wants to get better he should stop cowering whenever England so much as looks at him. It's pathetic."

India flinches and she suddenly looks contrite.

"I didn't mean...Sorry." There's a brief uncomfortable silence puncutated by the sound of a table being splinted by Russia's pipe. "Besides," she mutters, "It's different- Italy's got no reason to fear him. And you don't cower. From anyone." She stares at him.

He looks away and shrugs. It's true in a manner of speaking- the stregnth of being an up and coming superpower is a hell of a drug. His past is very much behind him.

But.

"I think they fought in World War Two." He says, not looking at her. She snorts.

"Then that was his own silly fault and he should get over it," her voice softens, "it's not the same." He opened his mouth to answer-

Suddenly, they ducked. A cup that had gone wild and smashed against the wall where their heads had been a moment before, showering them in shards of cheep pottery.

"Sorry!" Turkey called, waving at them from across the room before being rugby tackled by Greece. Bangladesh grunted and fixed her headscarf. India waved back and smiled.

"Moron." They said simultaneously.

"Good to see him blowing off steam though." India said after a moment, having no desire to go back to their previous conversation. Bangladesh gave him a look out the corner of her eye.

"You mean rather than blowing up ISIS?" A pause while his sister pretended not to see him slouch in relief. "Yeah. He deserves a break." Another, more comfortable, silence descended. Unsurprisingly, it's Bangladesh who breaks it, carefully inspecting her nails and speaking with affected calm.

"Speaking of blowing up, what's happening between you and Pakistan?"

He groaned and buried his head in his hands. With anyone else he would have deflected - played the bigger, nobler man. Or at least rambled some self-serving bullshit. But Bangladesh was the only person who knew him well enough to tell how false it was- and properly understood the nature of the Situation with his twin. It would be pointless- not to mention disrespectful- to try and lie to her.

"Who the fuck knows." He said wearily. She winced, he never swore if he could help it. "At this point I think she just wants to piss me off. I just wish-

Green light and the stink of sulfur. That is what he'd remember of the explosion that punched him through the chest and smacked him back against the wall. Sound sunk into nothing then exploding with a sharp Crack! He felt it in his bones and collapsed to the ground gasping for breath, unable to even curl up to protect himself. For an awful 30 seconds he could see and hear nothing, and clung to the rough carpet as his inner ear rebelled and the world kept spinning.

What? A bomb? In the rolling dark and silence, it could be anything, but who would know to attack the nations? Who would want to?

After a moment his vision returned, filled with pink spots and after flashes of green. His hearing felt at first as if it came from underwater, muddied and distorted. Before it even cleared, he staggered upright and looked around.

It looked like a bomb had gone off. But after a few terrified heart beats he can see it can't be- or at least it can't be any bomb he's ever seen. There's no smoke, no trace of pyrotechnics to produce that flash, through the rotten egg stink of sulfur is choking. There's black ash though, and lots off it, coating every surface- he wipes his cheek and it comes away gritty and soot stained. But the ash isn't evenly or even randomly distributed, instead it curls out in organic loops and whorls in circles and radial patterns from the middle of a bundle of nations- the center point? But even as he watches, the other nation are stirring, scrambling out of piles or curling up to hold their heads and blink spots out of their eyes, disrupting the intricate ash trails. Even the four largest, that push all the way out and up to the four walls of the meeting room, are rapidly disrupted and become smeared by the confusion that erupts.

Shouting, yelling, and more fighting. India just stands there confused and woozy.

"What the hell did you do?!"

He whips around, shocked and nearly falls over his own feet as he lurches back to avoid stepping on his sister. She's sitting up and glaring daggers at him, face contorted in rage.

"What do you mean what did I do?" His head is whirling, what was this? Her face scrunched up in confusion.

"What?"

India waved his hands in a placating gesture. "I didn't do anything!" This didn't seem to help and her anger began to give way to a glimmer of worried confusion.

"Delhi I can't understand you. Did your head finally get big enough to break your brain? What are you saying?"

India blinked. He was talking normally- they often did this, him speaking Hindi while she used Bengali- both of them were fully fluent so what was the problem? He was speaking normally. But, now he focused on what she was saying, she wasn't. The language she was using was an old form of Bengali. Really old. He just hadn't noticed because of his fluency. And now he was paying attention he could see she looked different too. Her handsome face was younger than it'd been for centuries, now with the round cheeks of a child just under twenty rather than a woman nearing her thirties. And she'd called him Dehli. A horrible thought crept up on him.

"What year is it?" It came out slower than he'd like- he needed to focus not to slip into modern Bengali, but he saw her face clear and wide eyes relax into cultivated disdain. God, she looked young.

"Seven hundred and sixty four."

"Twenty eighteen". The he paused for a moment, "- actually it would be more like fourteen-twenty ish for you?". She gave him a strange look for a moment, then her face cleared and she rocked back on her knees.

"Time travel?" she looked around the room again, craning her neck. "Huh."

"...You're taking it better than I thought you would."

She shrugged. " 's interesting." She gave the room another once over and muttered to herself for a minute. Then she looked at him, her eyes full of so much fire that he took a step back.

"Do you know who did this?" she demanded.

"... ?" He said. Actually he had a suspect pool of one, which wasn't quite the same thing- as modern Bangladesh would have pointed out. As it was, she just gave him a look and jerked her head to the side in a 'go fetch' gesture.

So India pushed his way through the multi-coloured throng, hunting for the thick browed nation- he could just imagine him playing with magic to curse his siblings (or France, or Spain, or America, or...)- he'd always been both vengeful and creative, even before he showed his true colours. Weaving his way across the chaos he nearly tripped over Spain and Portugal, been accidentally bashed by Italy enthusiastically fussing over a furious looking brown-haired child, and had evaded the optimistic groping of a disturbingly young France. Luckily, where France was England and his brothers would be nearby- sure enough a small, scruffy child barrelled past him towards France clearly intent on doing some serious damage.

It was easy enough to scoop him up as he went past- and even easier to drop him again when a retaliatory kick rocketed into his groin. Groaning he got up and wobbled to the new tangle of limbs that represented that part of the world. Slowly, and with no small amount of help from Norway and Netherlands the last fight was disassembled into its various constituent parts. Hanging onto the squirming child India thanked his lucky stars that at least now the kid didn't have the stamina to fight all day and he could just wait the tantrum out. If I keep my wits about me, he thought with a wince as he extracted his arm from England's sharp little teeth.

Finally the boy calmed down enough that India could spare the attention to survey the damage. It appeared that perhaps a fifth of the nations had been deaged- he could see a few very young children who could be no older than 6 . As well as Romano, whom he had tripped over earlier, He could also see America and Mexico who were currently squabbling over a toy someone had given them and Argentina who was, against all odds, sleeping peacefully. There were also a few who, like Bangladesh, remained adults- or were near enough, even if they were significantly younger. However the vast majority were teenagers and rather irritable at that- new squabbles were already breaking out as he took the time to actually look at England. Covered in ink and chalk, he looked to be around twelve years old- certainly no older. He bore a strong enough resemblance to Sealand that, aside from the obvious- Finland would never have allowed Sealand out of the house looking that unkempt – they could have passed for twins. The only noticeable difference was that he was shorter and thinner. Although this didn't appear to translate into being lighter, unfortunately.

As he brought the boy back to Bangladesh he wondered how they were going to communicate- would it be too much to hope that England's' English would have remained mostly unchanged for the best part of 700 years?

Yes, yes it was. Not even Shakespearean English could provoke anymore than a flat look of distrust. This posed something of a problem as India didn't actually know enough about England's history to find a language that a) the boy would be able to speak and b) wouldn't provoke a violent reaction from him if asked to speak it.

"Now what?" asked Bangladesh, with all her characteristic charm and grace. Actually, now he was focussing he could tell that he'd slipped into a much older form of Bengali when speaking with her- one that, if a modern day Bengali had heard it, would have been completely unintelligible. So much for stubbornness theory. Damn.

Contrary to their bosses belief (and practices) most nations did not research the histories of their fellows, considering it a woeful invasion of privacy to do so. Besides it often wasn't very useful for their purposes anyway, as the number of serious history books willing to stick their neck out and go 'you know that guy who goes to every public dinner but only has an unlabeled broom cupboard for an office? He's over 4000 years old and gets head colds every time the economy crashes', was, perhaps unsurprisingly, quite rare. This, thought India, was currently spectacularly unhelpful - as the relevant rumour mill were currently all about four foot nothing- however it wasn't as if he knew no European history, and they would just have to make do.

The child was now glaring at them warily, although he wasn't trying to run back to fight with his brothers, which was good- although it also looked like it was simply a matter of time, which wasn't. India decided that offence or no he had to at least try to communicate- and if he failed he could always try asking England's brothers or….He looked around the room. Norway. Norway was next to England right? They were practically cousins! If not he could always swallow his pride and ask Australia. He would have liked to ask Bangladesh, as she was probably rude enough to have gone through someone's history books behind their back- especially England's. "You can't fight an enemy you don't know!" she would have said. But she wasn't here, and that wasn't her fault.

He refocused on England, and made an informed judgement (i.e. a wild guess). Luckily his first guess, Latin, turned out to be understood- unfortunately, however, India had rarely ever had cause to use it and England apparently didn't really understand what he was trying to ask, if the reply of 'I don't know place' was accurate. At least Bangladesh confirmed that England didn't think he'd done it, all though he also seemed to be under the impression that he couldn't do magic. India doubted noise level in the room slowly started to creep back up as he tried to think of an answer, and couldn't. Sighing, he started to explain to him that even it got him trouble, lying was still wrong (and anyway he wouldn't be in much trouble anyway as it was probably an accident), when Bangladesh poked him in the arm and told him to stop harassing the kid, he clearly didn't know what was going on. He opened his mouth to gently remind her that, as a temporal newbie, she wasn't the smartest person in the room right now-

"THAT'S ENOUGH!" Germany's fuse, always on the brink, finally blew. Franky India was impressed he'd held on this long.

"Everyone pay attention! It is obvious that, for the time being that none of those affected can be left unsupervised for however long it takes them to recover! Not even the older ones,"he said, looking at Turkey disassembling his own smartphone. "Does anyone know what caused this?" Silence deafened the room- India felt the eyes track over to their position. He coughed and the eyes snapped up to him, rather than hovering somewhere near his armpit, where England had started to hide.

"He said he didn't do it Germany- he was quite adamant about it in fact" he said.

There was a snort to his left.

"And when have we trusted what he has to say on the matter?" Pakistan said. India could feel his hackles rise at her dismissive tone- but didn't want to give her the dignity of knowing that. Instead of looking at her, he glared at the front of the hall.

"Would you like to interrogate the temporally disadvantaged child, sister dearest? I'm sure he'll be so accommodating-"

"ENOUGH! Since I'm clearly the only one paying attention, I propose that those nations who are not affected should look after those who are- for younger nations this will mean full time care. Though with older ones should only need supervision. Any questions!" A few hands went up. "No? Gut."

As one being, most of the nations got up and left- lest they have a tiny nation inflicted on them. Pakistan stormed off, and Afghanistan gave them a little wave before chasing after her. Bhutan came up and made sure Bangladesh had all their phone numbers- and India couldn't help but notice that, along with most of Africa, Germany had also vanished as soon as he could. Difference being that he seemed to have a small tribe following him; tiny blond brother, both Italy's- as well as France, Spain, and Portugal. Although that seemed not to be entirely voluntary on Germany's part, given the grouchy slump to his shoulders. Australia waved at him as he left, a curly haired child under his arm. He laughed and gave Bhutan a hug before promising to call her, and was promptly sucked into the rising panic that was the vanishing of Mexico and America. After a brief panic Cuba yelled that they'd left with Canada, and that they were complete idiots for not noticing earlier. It was hard to argue with that.

After that the delegation of care became far more difficult- none of the Baltics could agree as to who was going to look after Romania and Bulgaria, and most of the middle east refused to even check on Turkey, who appeared to be faintly amused by the bickering, apart from when Iraq snatched the phone battery of him before he could find a way to pry it apart. Luckily Israel volunteered to check on Turkey, which even if it was only to spite Palestine and appear 'more mature and responsible', meant that one more could be crossed off the list. It also meant that everyone else also chipped in- if only to spite and/or thwart her. Argentina was eventually fobbed off on Chile (?) with much complaining whilst Greece was eventually picked up by Macedonia.

After that there were only a few left: the British Isles, Sweden, Denmark and the Russian siblings. They were a problem primarily because of their apparent (and occasionally unexpected) fondness for violence. Wales had bit the last idiot to try and pick him up, and his brothers looked like they might attack the next person who so much as looked at them funny. Ukraine was carrying a truly tiny Belarus and glaring at the world (slightly tearfully) as though it had personally offended her. Little eight year old Russia played with a bit of the chair that his sister had violently disassembled with the first aid mans' head. Poland had dragged the poor guy from the room, and sulkily declared that they could be someone else's problem for once. England meanwhile was scowling at all in his general vicinity. At least the problem of language had been sorted out, apparently India's first misgivings had been misplaced- French had been the, err, lingua franka of the day and most of Europe spoke it regularly, if not always fluently. Nonetheless, unless Bangladesh developed some hitherto unforeseen gift for insta-language learning, India could see the looming shape of a Latin dictionary on his personal horizon.

Not least because escaping with only Bangladesh in tow seemed more and more unlikely. No one seemed to want to take all of the British Isles- which yes to be fair, was a hell of a commitment, and no, he certainly wasn't going to stick his neck out to have to clean up after them. And, well -

"Obviously when I said all the British Isles I didn't mean 'lets put England and Ireland in the same bedroom', come on give me some credit"

"Honestly, I wouldn't have those two in the same house- not if I wanted it to be standing by the end of the week." Norway said. He'd been frustratingly stubborn for the whole conversation, standing there with his arms crossed and shooting down all suggestions put forward. India could feel his headache returning.

"But it seems cruel to have them be the only family separated- besides, England's what, thirteen? And Wales isn't much older." He tried to give Norway a significant look that boiled down to the essence of 'and that will not help any of them in the long run'.

Norway snorted.

"Look, I get you mean well but I'm not taking all of them- it's not safe and I don't have room" He shook his head and leveled a look at India which he really didn't know how to interpret. He hadn't been caught in the blast, as apparently that's what had 'caused' the change, but nonetheless hadn't escaped unscathed- green chalk splats showing an enthusiastic greeting from his neighbour Denmark, who now looked to have lost about seven years of visible age and a good ten pounds of muscle as he reverted to a wiry teanager. Norway turned back to India.

"Besides anyone who is able to take them all, shouldn't." He paused for a moment and gave India a look as cold as ice. "Why are you so interested anyway?"

A sigh was brutally stifled- Europeans were always so suspicious of anyone outside their arrogant little clique. "The Commonwealth would kill me if they got hurt- England might be an arsehole but some of their favourite uncles happen to be from that archipelago. Besides-" he frowned, "- it's not like there's a whole lot of options for them is there?"

Norway nodded- they (well, the UK) may not have been at the top of the 'worlds most aggressive nations' list for the best part of fifty years but it wasn't like the British Empire was a distant memory either. Brexit hadn't helped either- isolating them even further from those that would tolerate them before.

"If I take Ireland and Scotland- if Finland took the rest, would that be ok? He's only next door after all."Norway said. India nodded, and Norway called them over- unfortunately there was a problem.

"I can't take England." said Finland, looking terribly contrite for someone who'd just abandoned a small child. "I'm really sorry, India, Norway- I can take Wales, hell I think he and Denmark will get along great, but not England." Clearly his emotions must not have been as well hidden as he thought, because Finland took a deep breath and addressed him directly-

"-I'm really, really sorry India. I know the Commonwealth want you to make sure they're all ok, but we just can't take him…", Sweden placed a large soothing hand on Finland's shoulder.

"It w'ldn't be s'fe- n't with Seal'nd 'n the h'se." His voice rumbled with a finality which kind of pissed him off, if he was honest with himself. Norway's sigh and immediate apology- as if he should have foreseen this- did not help. Now India wouldn't say he knew England completely- but his worst side? Yeah, he probably knew more than these guys. And kids? The England he knew adored kids- Sealand might actually be the best thing for the little brat right now.

"You don't seriously think he'd hurt him do you?" He said, perhaps not as gently as he'd meant to. But hell, as much as he liked Russia, he was aware that the British Isles were the only ones who still hadn't been placed. He was even more aware that the kids were getting restless (apart from Denmark, who was fiddling with his nails), and that 'argument' translated in any language. And if there was one thing he prided himself on in the last three hundred years, it was that he'd at least been a half-competent pseudo-parent to the various waifs and strays trapped in the British Empire household.

Still, the muted coughing and shuffling that met his statement, made his blood run cold. The Nordics were avoiding eye contact, even Norway- and the tension in their shoulders made him think it wasn't just inconvenience that made them reluctant.

"..It's not that he's bad..from what I heard…" said Finland, eyes inspecting the once bland ceiling.

"J'st he's.." said Sweden, looking at the floor,

"Unpredictable." said Norway, looking him straight in the eye, "I like adult him well enough, but at this age he could be a real trouble maker. Anyway, if you're so worried, why don't you look after him? His home's not far from here and we won't be so far if you want them to be close enough to visit." He shrugged, "England would probably do better in one on one, or-" he gave a sideways look at Bangladesh, "-one to one-and-a-half adult supervision anyway."

"What sort of trouble maker?" said, India- not one to be sidetracked by such an obvious ploy.

Norway gave him a flat look. "The sort that doesn't always play nice with kids his own size, nothing you couldn't handle, but-", he gave a sigh, an shrugged. India gave him a long look- he had hoped it would communicate something like 'yeah, and how bad is it exactly?', but apparently something got lost in translation because Norway looked at his watch and replied,

"Look I need to go if I'm going to get these guys sorted in time for my flight tomorrow- if you want, I can get them to call twice a week? Who knows, maybe it'll stop them tearing the house down when we set up a meeting." He shrugged again before turning to his charges and saying something that sounded like a harsh, guttural relative of German or something. Scotland clearly said something to the effect of 'you're not the boss of me old man, go fuck yourself'- teenage body language apparently being one of those cultural universals. Ireland (should he call him Republic or South now?) rolled his eyes and asked him something else- Norway's answer made them all sit up straight, and India thought for a moment there might be an argument- particularly from England. But, there wasn't. Ireland looked uncomfortable for moment, but whatever Norway said clearly satisfied whatever was gnawing at him. Scotland looked almost relieved. India honestly couldn't tell what Wales thought of it all, but England's face was broadcasting his upset loud and clear- right up until he realised India was watching him.

India sighed, and Bangladesh sidled up to him.

"So, what now oh great guide to the future?" she said, curiously watching Finland cajole Wales out of the room.

"We take care of England, until the situation is resolved," he shrugged, and knelt down- outside of arm reach- he wasn't a total idiot. But Bangladesh taps him on the shoulder before he can say anything else and asks him what's happening.

"You and England are going to stay with me for awhile until this is resolved." He says it very calmly and professionally. She looks at him. He looks back.

"Like hell I am!"

For Bengal the world doesn't stop swimming till she sits down in her brothers horseless carriage- a 'car', he'd called it. It was a sleek dark thing full of something that probably wasn't leather and silver-coloured metal buttons, levers and knobs of mysterious function. Well most of them.

"- please don't ask me how planes stay up, I don't know and don't care." Delhi snapped, waving the hand on the steering wheel in a general expression of how unreasonable she was apparently being. Prick. Forewarned was forearmed and she might as well start now. Internal combustion engines in particular were a fascinating idea. Even beyond the immediate benefit- her time was unpredictable and about to be very dangerous. It would be regardless of what she did.

What was the phrase? Know thy enemy?

Instead of voicing her frustration - hadn't she done enough by submitting to his overbearing concern? - She simply rolled her eyes and fiddled with the radio, eventually settling on a channel that was playing something that sounded kind of familiar if she sought of mentally squinted and imagined that the players were hyperactive drunks. It felt unnatural to trust him with her back, even if he was distracted by driving. But still she had questions.

"That 'call' thing you were saying that England could do to talk to his brothers?" She keeps her voice light, no need to make it sound like the test it was.

"Yeah?" No tension, just mild curiosity.

""Does that use a string of numbers as a sort of address?"

He paused for a moment. "It lets you talk to the right phone, that's the thing you talk to the person through- so yeah, sort of?"

"So does that mean I can call our siblings at some point?"

"Yeah, sure- hell if you're feeling up to it I can show you how to work the phone tomorrow." He sounds enthusiastic, even as he scans the road for other cars at this strange circular junction. But why wouldn't he?

"Especially Sahadeva right?" she said, unable to stop a smirk curling across her lips. He froze and made an a aborted mouth motion. His shoulder went tight and his eyes furrowed with distress. Strange.

"..She's called Pakistan now." He said by way of a non-answer.

Something inside her twists. Shahadeva and Nakula were two sides of the same coin. They fought of course- occasionally brutally, but when the day was done they were always always on the same side. Even if they thought they weren't. A lifetime on the outside looking in had taught her that much.

She supposed the future really was a foreign country after all.

She tried to steer the conversation back to safer ground.

"So, how do you know England?" He flinches. She bites her lip.

"Can't I just take in a kid about to be abandoned?" She gives him a sharp look. Seven hundred years is a long time, but there are limits.

Although.. Wasn't that just a whole new puzzle? The conversation had happened in an alien language, and her brother hadn't bothered to translate for her- but she could hear the tone and it had been angry and resigned. The boy was a problem. Apparently. She glanced back at him, a scrawny little thing drowning in adult clothes, angry scowl overwhelmed by the largest eyebrows she'd ever seen. He didn't look threatening.

She glanced back at her brother's tense, unhappy face. Dehli, Nakula, her brother could be kind- if it benefited himself first of all. Decades and centuries of neglect and dismissal reared high in her memory. Joking, charming, adventurous and selfish. Her heart hurt when she thought of the last years before she'd finally had enough- every conversation, fine in isolation, leaving her more trapped than before. Charming days where he and Shaha made her feel welcomed and listened too- only for the rug to be pulled out from under her in the throne room and leave her feeling humiliated and foolish in their wake. She glances at the child. Then back at her brother- a good decade older than she knew him. Something wasn't adding up.

"No," she said eventually, just to make it clear. "No you can't." Wouldn't.

India sighed, a sad tired sound that makes her stomach curl up in shame a little. But at the same time. Should she just let him direct her wherever? She was already having to stay with him.

"It's not the thirteen hundreds anymore." He said quietly. There's a quiet pause, the boy even stops kicking his seat- presumably picking up on the tension.

"We were close." She has to strain her ears to hear it.

And you aren't anymore. She swallows around the lump in her throat. "I'm sorry."

"It doesn't matter anymore."He shrugs limply. It does, it clearly still does- but if he doesn't want to talk about it then she can't force him.

Instead she turned to watch the world speed by. At first it made her feel dizzy and slightly sick, but after a while her stomach settled and she could watch the people go by in the minutes they spent stuck behind other cars. They were interesting, along with people who were more normal shades of rich brown where many who were the same pasty white and pink as the nation in the back seat, or the deep glossy black she associated with Ethiopeans. Still others were a bright, painfull looking red. But most interesting of all was the tattoos - bright swirling colours forming faces and birds and abstract designs that stretched over entire arms or legs- or even faces. They were beautiful, and inwardly she marveled at the precision and artistry, as well as the ability to avoid infection.

In fact even glancing through the window she could see that maybe that wasn't such an issue- the people to a fault were uncommonly tall and handsome- their skin mostly free of smallpox scars and their bodies with the pleasing proportions of the well fed. She glanced back at- what was he? England? With curiosity. The child was scrawny and wild looking, monstrous eyebrows drawn tight in a scowl as he kicked the back of her brothers chair again. No, she still couldn't see it. He looked to her like a wild underdeveloped land, and she had gleaned he was from the far west and north- a backwards land in her own time. So perhaps the world was just like this now?

Hope, a fragile thing she tried to keep under control, bloomed beneath her breast. She glanced back at her brother, boyish roundness and arrogance eaten away by time. Maybe. Maybe the future was bright.

"So who do you know capable of messing about with a time machine? I want to thank them." She's only half joking. If possible, India's face fell even further.

And he told her.

Dinner had not gone well. It had taken a full hour to convince England that the food wasn't poisoned, and sure the food wasn't quite up to India's standard, England's fridge being so neglected. Still, it was a damn site better than what England, at any age, would have produced, so he couldn't help but feel offended when he'd shoved his chair back two feet and given the curry an unholy glare.

Bangladesh's coughing was not helping- I mean really, he'd only used a little bit of chilli, far less than she normally used, what was their problem? It'd taken until ten o'clock and being south of an Anglicised Indian takeaway before he'd remembered that chillis were a new world crop, and thus neither of his charges would have been even remotely familiar with them.

On the bright side however, England was easily herded off to one of the many spare rooms, feet not quite dragging - but definitely looking like they would if he caught him unguarded. Bangladesh was equally exhausted and made her way to the room next door, only stopping to ask him where she could wash and go to the loo and such- she seemed very impressed with the bathroom and gave it a sleepy nod of approval before sloping of to bed. Honestly, he could get information out of her tomorrow, being flung into the future could hardly be an easy experience. His face split into a jaw popping yawn, and he finally let himself slump - submitting to the tiredness that had been nibbling at him for a couple of hours. He gave a long look at the remaining two doors, there were more rooms upstairs, but to be honest he couldn't be arsed to climb the staircase. And besides, it felt silly to avoid rooms he hadn't even seen in decades. So he opened the door to his old room, and breathed a small sigh of relief that it had been repainted. Refurbished too- although he supposed that was inevitable given the mess the bomb had made of the whole house.

He spared a glance for the stout wooden door of the master bedroom looming at the end of the hall. They'd need to have a look in it at some point, as England may have stored useful information in his bedroom at some point, and if they were going to fix this….

Well, it's not as if it had to happen tonight, yeah? Besides, it was almost certainly locked- and possibly not only with methods mundane and ordinary. So there was no point in banging the door down now and waking everybody up. He could leave that till the morning.

Light blazes through his eyelids as his body aches, just breathing in the smell of damp grass and sheep that signals the countryside. He tries to get his breath back, having been winded by the fall.

He groans and rolls over, only to have the end of his nose nibbled on by an overly optimistic sheep, he opens his eyes so he can get the dratted thing away from him this instant when he spots the rather gobsmacked looking shepherd. He was middle aged and brown haired, with a red pockmarks complexion that spoke of long term alcoholism- the worst thing, however, was his clothes. They were medieval. And not in the quaint, historically inaccurate way of Ren fairs either.

He pokes at the connection.

Ah. Bugger.

He sighs. Clearly it was just one of those days. Wonderful.

He wakes up and it burns in a way it hasn't for decades...

He curls up, whimpers and rides it out.

She hasn't felt like this since she can remember- the lightning skitter of a people's rage, the strength of a nation going to war. She runs to a balcony in the palace she hasn't seen in centuraries- below is a sea of men, pikes bristling in the sun. Their banners unfurl, and the familiar face of Ilyas Shah marches out in front of his men. Her mouth goes dry.

Well shit.

The world expanded in the dark, the veil stretching thinner- lines of reality crisscrossing it like spiderwebs. The creatures, formless, voiceless, almost thoughtless, stretch and coil and move- outwards.

AN: Yay! it worked! So I'm just going back to clarify a few historical things. Bengal is Bangladesh more or less- though half of historical benga is now in India 1) The periods of history young England and Bengal are from are quite turbulent- England because Europe at this point was 50 cats fighting in a bag and Bengal because she's currently trying to break away from the rulership of the Dehli Sultanate who iiisss- India. And Pakistan. I imagine them as twin entities who untill relitavely recently were a bit like North and South Italy, two representations for one (very large, very fractured) area. Historical India is actually really difficult to apply Nation-tens to because it has so many independent kingdoms, but at the same time a young nation tan still feels... wrong given how old the cultures actually are. So behold the fudge! Two people who represented many kingdoms up untill partition. Not especially original but it works for this.

AN2: So major revision as I was feeling bored by my own story and needed to rework it to make it more fun.