Chapter 1: First Act

You sure as hell couldn't say that Wales hadn't kept himself healthy: even if he was well past two thousand years old, he didn't look a day older than twenty three.

His semi-immortality was a side advantage of being a freak of nature, even if, as everything in this world, it didn't come without a number of bad sides.

He hadn't lived for more than two thousand years in peace and tranquillity: but the tiredness coming from that weight, such a weight that no God would burden a mortal with, could be seen only from time to time as a melancholic shade in his deep green eyes.

The face of Wales' personification, on the other hand, was relaxed and calm as he sat on the red sweatshirt of his national rugby team (an original one, coming straight from the first foundation of the team), folded like a pillow to isolate himself from the wet grass under him, appearing completely at peace with himself and the world.

Wales was lazing around on the borders of a fenced grassland in his countryside, sitting with his back against the paling, enjoying the unusually warm autumn sun; a pencil stuck behind his ear and a drawing block on his crossed legs, which sheets were covered in quick but careful sketches of the majestic Shire grazing just a few meters from him.

While he was waiting with the endless patience of an artist for the horse to turn around and allow him to draw the line of his strong neck, Wales stretched a hand backwards, touching the ground blindly in search for the red apples he had taken with him to catch the horse's attention, which he had picked up the same morning from the trees near his home.

He found one, admired for a moment the twisting white veins on its skin, and then bit down on it, enjoying its crispness under his teeth and its mealy sweetness, making sure that the juice would not drip on the sheets.

In the past, people who had seen him in a moment of particularly impressive anger told him how he looked like his twin England, but Wales knew better than that. Those people had never seen said England on a rampage because of unrestrained hate or going almost berserk in battle as he did.

No, Wales had never reached his twin's negative record tracks. Better, he had never been forced to do so: deciding their own character was rarely up to his God-forgotten race, and while the English Empire had needed a personification endowed with such charisma and such ferocity to be a match for the whole world, the little principality of Wales had never had the same need.

But Wales had also been given the chance to see his twin in his rare moments of peace: relaxed, happy, able to enjoy the little wonders of the world like a child would.

That was why Wales liked to think that, even if he had never told England so, it was in those moments of untroubled serenity that the two looked more alike.

A similarity that went farther than simple looks, which alone was enough for him to come to terms with the fact that he was often mistaken for England; they looked about the same age, they were the same height, had the same slender build and the same features with high cheekbone and slim jaw, the same thin lips, bushy eyebrows and large green eyes. The only real difference was the hair - even if Wales' was as unruly and rebellious as England's, the former's blonde leant more towards brown than ash.

Deep down, they were brothers no matter what, as nations and as people: even if from time to time they fought furiously, they had never been able to hold a grudge for very long. In one way or another, they always returned to sitting next to each other, laughing at their annoying older brothers or enjoying their reciprocal company in a knowing silence.

A sudden movement of the horse, until then completely still, shook him from his thoughts.

The big Shire had stopped grazing and his muzzle was pointing towards his right, the posture of his neck and back showing off a certain curiosity.

Wales followed the horse's stare, and what he saw made him stand up quickly and sink into a deep bow to greet the creature that came running with graceful steps along the fence towards him.

"Pleased to meet you, gracious daughter of the Sidhes," Wales said with calm and polite voice, rising from his bow as the red-haired fairy stopped in front of him, apparently having found what she was looking for.

"The pleasure is all mine, Cymru," the Fae girl said with a nod, pushing a rebellious strand of hair behind her pointed ear. "And I'm not saying this out of empty courtesy; I do really need your help."

Used to the usually noble-like and distant manners of the Sidhes, Wales was shocked by her straightforwardness, but he found an answer to it in the urgency he could read in her green eyes.

But around Sidhes, a border of safety must always be kept.

"I may do what is in my power to help you, my lady, if you gave me a name to call you with."

Usually, fairy creatures didn't go around harming his kind, but there were some rules to follow, with no exceptions: never give them your name if you're not getting anything in exchange, never lie to them, never be in debt to them, never accept an agreement without previously listing the rules.

The fairy had shown she already knew his name, so he had proposed her an exchange to gain some equality: her name for the promise to help her, the promise carefully phrased to not make it binding.

"Narrator. I'm the Narrator," the green-clad spirit answered without any roundabout expressions, and Wales accepted the answer with a nod: even if that probably was not her real name, it was still a name she herself had given him, so it had the same power.

"So, what happened, my Narrator?" Something was not right, Wales could feel it. It wasn't only about the fairy's agitation, there was something wrong...

"It's about your brother England. He has had an accident with an insidious kind of magic and he's in danger."

"What?" the young man shouted, frenzied, only to stop dead still like an animal ready to strike. "What the fuck happened! No, wait, take me to him!"

"I wanted to ask exactly this from you," the Sidhe agreed, turning towards the endless field of clover on the other side of the fence and stomping on the ground with her bare foot, making the little bells tied to her ankle tinkle with force.

The metallic sound seemed to expand in the air until it became a bothersome pressure on Wales's eardrums but it stopped abruptly when a glowing circle appeared in the middle of the clover field.

"Go, Cymru. Help him." And so, without any thoughts of his sweet red apples or his drawings, Wales climbed over the fence with a feline-like leap and jumped in the middle of what he had recognized as a portal circle that fairy beings used to move between the world of the Faeries and the Earth.

The nation had just the time to turn around and cast a last glance at the strange Sidhe before the world started to distend and twist around him, but in the moment when his green eyes met hers, Wales saw something that seemed to be between detached pity and satisfaction.

A freezing terror drowned him when he realized he hadn't complied with his rules: the worry for his brother's safety prevented him from asking precisely where she was sending him. What...

But he didn't have the time to worry more than so, as in less than three heartbeats the circle had already taken him to his destination, which was a corridor with floor made of rough stone and walls covered in pale pine-wood, darkened with age.

Relieved to recognize the place, Wales ran for the only door on the end of the corridor, slamming it open with force and found himself in England's familiar chamber of divination.

The trembling light of the great number of candles gathered on some drawers aligned along the walls of that room without windows projected strange and deceptive reflections on the surface of the wide and deep stone-lined pool in the ground, outlining with inhuman but wonderful precision the silhouette of someone immersed in it.

Wales' breath was hissing, as if that burning and throbbing lump in his throat was preventing him from breathing, as he rushed to kneel beside the figure abandoned in the water, not even casting a glance to the astonishing rug of green grass that covered the ground.

His brother was lying motionless on the bottom of the pool, his head just above the surface thanks to the combined efforts of a few small fairies, whose butterfly-like wings had lost almost all their glow because of the labour of beating them to prevent the young man from drowning, and as soon as Wales took their place, they glided slowly on the grass, exhausted.

"What happened?" Wales asked with hoarse voice as he dove his hands and arms into the water and passed them under his twin's armpits to take him out, trying not to think of Goddess-only-knew what kind of magic he was getting soaked with.

"He lost consciousness when he fell in the water, as he was looking at his past in there. We wanted to take him out, but the magic prevented us from touching the water. So the Noble Sidhe went looking for help," a panting little fairy with red and blue wings explained from beside Wales' foot; the young man hugged his unconscious brother even tighter against his chest, not giving a damn about wetting his clothes.

And yet, even if under his hand Wales could feel England's chest rising and lowering at his breath rhythm, as well as he could feel him shivering because of his cold and soaked clothing; even if his senses were telling him that his brother was there with him, the tiniest nation of the United Kingdom felt that something wasn't right: the same feeling of wrongness he had felt with the Sidhe was tormenting him like a premonition.

Since the candles provided too little light for him to search for the source of that with his eyes, and since he still didn't feel like bringing his twin out of there, Wales made him sit in his lap, his back pressed against his chest and his head bowed backwards to lie on his shoulder, and started to touch England's body with his hands, trusting his touch like a wolf would trust his smell.

The first thing he noticed was that England seemed to be too light, definitely lighter than he remembered. The second was, even if in that position it was hard to tell, that his brother was also smaller: surely more than Wales, which wasn't possible, as they were normally just as big as each other.

With his heart beating faster and faster, and his eyes stinging because of unshed tears, Wales' touch rose on England's chest, but when he got to his face, he hesitated, and his hand went past and trailed through his twin's hair, stroking it like he'd do with a cat to calm himself.

Unexpectedly, he found in his finger a branch of something that, ouch!, must have been a branch of holly, if the needle-like leaves were a trustable hint.

Wales put the holly in his pocket and then, finally, with the tip of his fingers he slowly outlined his brother's features that he could barely see: the tip of the chin, the line of the jaw, the hollow under the ear, the roundness of the cheek, the lid-covered eyes and the long eyelashes, the light hollow of the temples; and again the thin lips, the dimple over his upper lip, the lightly button-like tip of the nose, the straight line of the septum, the curved line of the superciliary arch and the bushy eyebrows, the low hairline.

It was like Wales remembered, but it was wrong. The line of the jaw should have been different, as so the cheeks and the tip of the nose. He couldn't say whether they should have been softer, straighter or whatever, but they weren't right.

What had happened to his twin? It was as if...

"Oh my Goddess... No, please, no..." Wales knew that for the Christians naming God's name in vain was a sin, and with certain bitterness he thought that way too often naming whatsoever God's name was indeed in vain.

The young made his brother's unconscious body slide in his arms, posed a kiss on his forehead and then stood up, but rather than a charming prince in the act of saving his princess, he looked more like a puppeteer trying not to break a precious doll of glass.

Author: Ooook, people! I'm back! And I have to say that I'm surprised by my own quickness is updating...

Narrator: You're nor the only one, beieve me. u_u

Author: Ow, here you are, you party pooper! I was just wondering whether you were going to honour me with your rojal presence...

Narrator: I have to say that, yes, I indeed decided to grace you with my witty remarks U_U *nonchalance*

Author:... I swear not even the awesome me knows whether she does that on purpose or it's natural for her... o.O Anyway! Reviwes, hun? You did really make my day!

Narrator: Yeah. So now, let me just say one thing: reviews are awesome. Are you awesome? *big smile*

Author: ... wow. That was great.

Narrator: took it from Tehri, you know. ù_ù

Author: ... ah, did you?