Historical Hetalia fic based on the story of an English king called Alfred... what could possibly go wrong? First proper Hetalia fic, hurrah!

I do not own Hetalia, and the chances of me owning an Anglo-Saxon king who's been dead for over 1200 years is... um, pretty limited.

Alfred the Great

"Britain! Hey, Britain! Britain!"

It was the close of what had been a long and remarkably unproductive meeting, so perhaps England could be forgiven for only just managing to restrain himself from openly rolling his eyes. He turned. "Yes, America?"

The bigger nation was waving his arms around excitedly, managing to take up far more than his fair share of space. "Dude, I just heard something really cool from Denmark - was one of your kings really called Alfred the Great? I mean, really?"

It took England less than a second to work out what America was actually asking, and he sighed. "Yes, America, the name I gave you to use among the humans comes from him."

America's eyes went brilliantly wide. "That's awesome!" he crowed, and England struggled not to flinch at the volume. "I'm named after someone called the Great! That'll show Prussia!" And he turned with a bounce in his step, as if to go and immediately hunt down the former nation. Then he paused and looked back at the smaller nation. "Um... Britain? What did Alfred the Great actually do, apart from be King of England?"

Secretly delighted that America was actually showing interest in his history, England answered, "He was the King of Wessex, technically, not the King of England. England as a kingdom didn't exist until thirty years after he died, though what was once Wessex is most of England today."

"So... Wessex is one of those things you call a county?" America looked puzzled.

A very definitive shake of the head. "No. It's more like the way Italy used to be, actually... though you're too young to remember that. Oh, this is complicated... how can I explain it properly? What is now England used to be made up of lots of little kingdoms, and Wessex was the second biggest one. After Alfred died, all the little kingdoms ended up merging into one kingdom."

"The United Kingdom!"

"No!" England gave in to temptation and smacked the world's largest superpower around the head. "England, you prat. The United Kingdom doesn't turn up for another thousand years."

"Oh." America frowned and looked at his shoes. "Your history is really confusing, y'know."

"It's just longer and more refined, that's all," England answered loftily, ignoring the hiss of "Pirata!" from a passing Spain.

"So... this king dude... when was he around?"

"A good... oh, I'd say about eight hundred years before I met you, around the middle of the ninth century."

America's face fell almost comically. "So I got named after a really ancient dude?"

England decided to ignore that. "Alfred was born in 849, the fourth son of the previous king Aethelwulf and his first wife Osburh, and..."

"Yeah, yeah, but what did he do? He wasn't called Alfred the Awesome just because he was the fourth son of someone else, was he? And how did he get to be king at all if he was the fourth?"

"Alfred the Great," England made sure to emphasise the third word, "came to the throne of Wessex after all three of his brothers died fighting the Danes."

"Danes – ooh, Denmark!"

"Yes. But then he was called Scandinavia, and it was him, Sweden and Norway all together. Most people today just call them Vikings. You following so far?"

"Hero dude became king when his brothers died fighting awesome Vikings, got it." America grinned. "I like this story."

England looked around and spotted a set of meeting notes that were covered in scribbles. Figuring that they probably belonged to Italy and that he wouldn't mind too much if England borrowed them, he flipped one sheet over and began to draw.

"The Vikings took over most of my country," he said, tracing the outline of his island carefully. "By the time that Alfred came to the throne, they were so powerful that he had to pay them off to stop them from attacking him any more."

America frowned. "That doesn't sound very 'great' to me..."

"Yes, I know. Wait." England sketched a rough oval on top of his map, covering most of the south of England. "This is where Wessex was. The only kingdom bigger than it was Mercia, which was in the middle, here, and Essex was this bit, just here in the east. Then there's East Anglia up there in the north east... you're not paying attention, are you?"

"Huh? What? Something about anglers?"

"Thought so. And it's Anglia, but never mind. Ignore the map. When Alfred first came to power, he didn't have enough men to fight off the Vikings, so he paid them to stay away. They did that for a while, though he still had to fight them in skirmishes throughout his reign. Eventually he managed to push the majority of them out of Britain and into France, which was nice of him."

England looked up. As expected, there was a big grin on the taller nation's face. "Really? He actually kicked the Vikings all the way out?"

"All the way to France. I was really rather proud of him. They came back, but only after about a hundred years or so. In fact, the Vikings that Alfred kicked out of Ireland and England went on to become the Normans, and you know what happened there."

There was a long pause. "This has something to do with France and that guy called William, doesn't it?" said America cautiously.

"Yes. I guess you could say it wasn't really the French that invaded in 1066, but the Danish who had lived in France for years that kept coming back again after we'd got rid of them multiple times. Persistent Viking frogs, if you like."

"I 'eard zat, Britain!"

Showing remarkable presence of mind, America interrupted before England could launch a counter-insult at his age-old rival. "So he was called the Great because he kicked all the Vikings out of Britain, right?"

France had escaped into the crowd of nations, so England had no choice but to turn back to America. "Partly. He was also a very learned man who organised a complete reform of the military and the education system. He saw what was wrong with the army that he had when he first came to the throne, and worked out just how to change it so that the Vikings would find it really difficult to win against them again."

"What sort of stuff did he do?"

England thought for a moment. It had been a long time since his Alfred had come up in conversation, and even though he'd known the man personally - and actually liked him quite a lot - there had been a lot of kings and battles in between. There had been 1066 and France in between, of all the horrible things to impinge on his memory of his first Alfred. "Alfred built lots of fortresses across Wessex that could support a large army and get them anywhere in his kingdom very quickly. The Vikings had no siege equipment, so the fortresses worked really well against them. And because the Vikings had boats, he made sure that his people had them too, and built a fleet. He even managed to beat the Vikings a few times, even though they were sailors and we... well, weren't."

America had an oddly fascinated look on his face. "He sounds really clever."

"He was," England said proudly. "And he wanted to make sure that all of his people were too. He set up a court school for all the nobles' sons, and for the clever ones from the lower classes, and tried really hard to get all of his courtiers and the people who held high office to be literate. He said once that he wanted everyone in England to be able to learn in English, and in Latin if they wanted to continue." He allowed himself a small smile. Alfred had been remarkably forward-thinking for his time, always looking towards the future of his people rather than the past - so very much like the Alfred now before him. "He was also the first to insist on scribes writing down what was happening at the time. I guess you could call him the first Anglo-Saxon historian."

"Anglo-whatsits?"

"Anglo-Saxons were what my people started being called after Rome left and... oh, never mind. I've told you what you wanted, haven't I?"

America was silent for a whole two seconds. "So you say he was really, really clever and made all of your people cleverer too, and he kicked all the awesome people from Denmark over to France so they wouldn't beat you up any more, and made sure that everyone knew what he'd done by getting someone to write it down?" At England's nod, a huge grin spread across his face. "I take it back, he's not a boring old guy at all – he was a hero like me!"

"Please remember he was English," England muttered. "I will never forgive you if you start claiming he was actually American."

"Yeah, but he sounds so much like me that he must be at least part me!"

"If anything, you are like him, not the other way round. He had been dead for nearly a thousand years before you were even discovered."

"But... maybe he was so clever that he was actually an awesome superhero-time-travelly person with cool powers and he could..."

"America!" England growled, then sighed and gave up in the face of America's unrelenting smile. "I suppose he did act a bit like you. A lot like you. He was reckless, he was aggressive, he was rude... he always wanted to help everyone even if lots of people became angry with the things he suggested, he did things... did things I thought were impossible for one so young." He looked up, managing to tuck the smile away in the corner of his mouth. "One so unlikely to succeed without the help of his older brother."

"And you gave me his name?"America's voice suddenly dropped to an almost-normal speaking volume. "That's... dude, that's really awesome. Seriously."

And to England's utter shock, he found himself enveloped in a tight hug.

"America... let go of me." he managed to gasp out; the other nation clearly didn't know his own strength and was slowly crushing his lungs. "Now!"

America jumped back at the tone of voice, and had the sense to look a little sheepish. "Sorry, dude, didn't mean to hurt you. But, y'know..." here he perked up. "Thanks for the name and all. It's really cool."

"Don't mention it," England muttered, crumpling the now-useless map of his island in one fist. "Besides, he's been dead for twelve hundred years, it's about time I had another chaotic Alfred around the place."

"What?"

But England just shook his head. After all, he was never going to tell America that he was just as proud - if not far more so - of the Alfred standing before him as he had once been of his Alfred for pushing the Viking threat out of England for a century, however much of an upheaval his reign had caused. There was probably a good reason why only one king in all his history had been given the epithet of "The Great".

"Hey," America grinned. "I'm gonna go tell Prussia and Denmark! Bet they'll love it!" He spun once more on his heel and took a step into the crowd, but England called after him before he could vanish completely.

"America?"

"Yeah?"

"I just thought you should know - your namesake is legendary for one another thing."

"Really? How much more awesome could he be?" America grinned. "Go on, then. What is it?"

Englad looked him straight in the eyes. "Alfred the Great was absolutely terrible at cooking. He always burnt the cakes."

How he managed to keep a straight face at America's expression he never knew.

A/N – teeheehee... sorry, that was one story I absolutely could not resist.

The legend of the burnt cakes: When Alfred the Great was first beaten by the Vikings in the first years of his reign, he fled into hiding for a while. Whilst travelling incognito, he was sheltered by a peasant woman who, unaware of his identity, left him in charge of the flat-cakes she'd left near the fire. Alfred, being occupied by thoughts of how he was going to defend his kingdom, forgot about the cakes and got yelled at by an angry peasant woman for burning them. He then ate them anyway, which actually just made her even angrier.

Unfortunately, only a legend – the first account of it appeared two hundred years after Alfred's death. But awesome nevertheless.

Yes, I am well aware that America more than likely gave himself the name Alfred in canon, and that it probably isn't related to Alfred the Great in any way, but the cake-burning legend was just too funny to leave. Of all the names that England could have given him, it had to be the one of the king with the title of "The Great" and a penchant for burning the cooking...

"Pirata", if you hadn't guessed, is Spanish for "Pirate"

And now for the very long historical notes which you are welcome to skip if you like.

Alfred the Great was an Anglo-Saxon King (King of Wessex) who reigned between 871-899. He really is the only English monarch to get the title of "The Great" attached to his name, and it's for a very good reason.

He did a huge amount to develop pretty much every system, military, legal and educational. He ordered clerks and scribes from Wales, North England and from abroad to come and improve the court literacy rate, and set up a court school to teach his sons, the sons of the nobles and the intellectually promising boys from the lower classes. It didn't stop there, though, and he declared that he wanted every free-born young man to be taught in English and then Latin if they wanted to continue. He attempted to make it a requirement that those in the court had to be literate, though this was less successful. He also had several texts translated from Latin into English, at least four of which he did himself. And, as mentioned, he was the person who ordered the creation of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the most important text ever found for describing the Anglo-Saxon era and the rise and fortunes of Alfred's line.

Military Reforms: Frankly, this guy was a military genius. When the Vikings nearly destroyed him at the start of his reign, he took a good look at what was wrong with his army and put in place all the things needed to remedy it. And it worked.

It was his idea to split the standing army in half so that half was on duty and half at home, so that there were always more people to draw on in a long campaign.

He completely changed the way that the Anglo-Saxon soldiers fought and defended against the invaders by building a network of thirty-three small but heavily defended fortresses across Wessex that could all warn and support each other, and which could get a large army to any given point in what is now South England within a day. Without siege equipment, the Vikings could do nothing against them.

He had a new fleet of ships built (not actually the start of the Royal Navy, but pretty close) that patrolled the rivers of England and challenged the Danish pirates (Vikings). He won several naval skirmishes with them, even though the Danish were far better sailors.

So... he's a pretty awesome king.