Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality
Anya is LIVE right now
FREE
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
Thinking about how 1,500+ years of life doesn't make Arthur a good father, but it does soften him up.
The rediscovery of Beowulf as the long 19th century begins and the first 100+ years of translations use the root word aglæc to describe both Beowulf and Grendel's mother. For Beowulf, the translators used "heroic." For Grendel's mother, "monstrous."
Arthur spoke that natively, his second language after his mother's Bythronic. He can remember the long house, warm with crowded bodies and the fire, smoky but pleasant. He can remember the voice of the bard rising and falling, the shadows in the shape of heroism on the wall flickering in firelight. He can remember the delight and shudder and communal thrum of each reaction. He can remember the loudest laughs and gasps coming from the great lady at the head of the table, who is the reason he is fed, clothed, and alive, who also holds the seax of all free people at her waist and commands the space.
His youngest two children sit in his Victorian library, perhaps with the neighbors' children, listening to their father at his finest and their uncle at his happiest, telling stories no human has heard in a thousand years. One too many glasses of port at dinner and a glug of brandy, and they're on their feet, telling tales. One or two of his mothers more than populate the compilation of the Mabinogion, and, of course, Arthur's Beowulf. And they listen as he once listened. To his mother, his sister, his brothers, and the bards. Watching shapes on the wall, the delight of triumph, and the grip of the tale.
His eldest, if not his firstborn, is content to listen from a spot apart. Leaned in a doorway, always curious about what came before the Normans made English as much of a mix of French and English as he himself. Actually understanding, born of the effort to please rather than just being entertained as Arthur wheels into a rush of English older than anything, tinged with Mercian vowels.
His next boy, social through and through, reacting as much to a sweep of the arm or an exaggerated face as to the expressions of the other children, running a finger over the illustrated copy open in his lap, eyes flicking between everything, excitement itself, holding onto the sounds because they are musical and there's nothing he loves more than melody. He will learn every song a thousand years and more can teach, but for now, he listens, concentrating on holding still.
And his last child. His girl. The very, very best of him. She holds herself high, back straight with interest, listening intently, following better than the other children despite little more inthe way of knowing. She is mouthing words, memorizing them for later, packing them away, He bounces around in the same language, between the oldest words and the newest. Her hands are on her knees, kinetic with the tale. She can be so still, but now she is alight. He finds himself telling her the story. Looking at her, facing her, orienteering like Jack does. She doesn't hide her expression and the monsters are always her favorite part. Grendel's mother takes action, moving the story, and she frowns. Rhys feigns pulling a sword from a sheath and raising it up, but the expression disappears. Zee is patient; she always has been. Time bounces across a sentence as he continues.
He knows the words of the translation; the book in Jack's lap speaks next. Grendel's mother, a woman, a wretched woman. This from 'aglæcwif', of the same root as speaks to Beowulf's heroism. The men will translate and transform. She becomes a wretch and later hell-bride, monstrous, evil. And later, the women translators will call her a warrior, and a mighty one at that. They are not that far yet, not in this long 19th century, but he can do better. For she is no wretch, no monster, no hell bride but a girl.
He can hear the bards of a millennium before, deferring to the great lady of the hall who sits in the great chair, circlet low on her forehead, brooches gleaming at her shoulders. The way his mother sat was commanding and tall. The bard bowed before her as he spoke the next words. His youngest before him, her back straight, He looks at her, her bright eyes are on the page near Jack's finger, and she is frowning.
Again, he hears the Bard's words and the deference there.
'Grendles mōdor / ides, aglæcwif.' He knows the words. He has spoken to them so often, but not for so long. Zee looks up at him. She is not nameless. She is more than his daughter as the great lady was more than wife or mother. She looks at him, and he wonders if she knows this isn't right, what the translation wants to put in his mouth. Neither helll bride nor monstrous nor wretched. He drops to her level, one knee down, more homage than seated. She meets his eye, and he will see steel there before long. He knows the word he wants, what Zee is.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality
Anya is LIVE right now
FREE
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
How aware do you think the kids are of their father, uncles and aunt’s childhood? I can see both it being an unspoken thing, but then a drunk Rhys or Arthur occasionally letting something slip. And would they ever talk about their mother?
I think stories from what Arthur considers his halycon childhood between the 1st and 4th century C.E have slipped through. Even with the Roman invasion and the displacements it caused and Boudicca's revolt that literally scorched themselves into a layer of ash still visible today in English archaeology, he remembers being relatively protected and high status both in the Roman world and in the British. Britain under the Roman empire wasn't the most important place in the empire but there were a lot of natural resources the British exploited, and conflict along the borders of northern England and southern Scotland made and unmade several emperors, with at least one being crowned in England iirc. Eirian was forced to negotiate with Lucius (a tentative name for Rome) about Rhys and Arthur but she did keep all four of them close. So Arthur remembers her and references her most when doing human activities done even in a modified sense, since the dawn of time. Things like spinning weaving and ship building he learned at her hand even if his memories of that are kind of bundled into Brighid too. The first apple crop after the Romans introduced them to England, the emptying of the beehives for winter storage, being taught to draw his bow against his cheek and shoot straight. Being scolded for running off without his cloak because he was a high energy ambitious little shit who never thought things through. Those things and the mentions or her make it into his children's lives.
They're less aware of who Eirian was as a person because Arthur especially looks at his earliest years under her guiding hand with rose coloured glasses so thick he's looking at anything pre 500s like this. But they are aware of her existence.
He leaves out the headhunting or maybe not really human sacrifice (the mine level amount of salt I have with the popular interpretation of Lindow man is kind of insane.) He leaves out executions and exile, torture and terror. Eirian loved her children in the way Boudicca did. The kind of love that leaves scorch marks in the earth for millennia. Her death was 1000 years before any of Alfred's generation came into being but considering that craters leave marks millions of years later, she's a presence.
It is a lot of So much of what we consider "Celtic" today is a result of the Celtic revival of the 19th century. Most profoundly in Ireland, but also to a fairly wide extent in Scotland, Wales and surprisingly for me who studied the lionization of the Anglo-Saxons by the British empire, England as well. So Eirian was a shadowy but present figure. The diaspora in the U.S. Canada, Australia and NZ often being referred too as Anglo-celtic gives me brain rot. This perception of her as viewed by children, particularly Arthur, something still concrete and visible. A lot of who Eirian was surrounded this lot as they're growing up. Just in Arthur's Manor house I think there are post holes from roundhouses, reused Romano-British masonry in the first floor, Viking age bodies in the back garden. At least one statue of her that either survived when the anglos saxons reused old Roman and British villas or that was uncovered in church foundations or even an actual pig sty (this actually happens) is around the house.
Also... There's one headcanon I've had for a very long time where he always waits for them to wake up and start breathing again if it happens around him. Sitting vigil through a long night, turning the other way when Matt outright leaves to go check on Alfred and watching him carefully for answers when he returns. He searched Matt's face for what news, what despair, what relief marked his expression when he returned from tugging Alfred's corpse from the piles of dead at Antietam. And that, I think, stems from Brittania's death. When the sun went dark in the sky and pestilence followed hot on the heels of famine and their mother did not wake. Not that last time however it happened. And that may be burned into their perception of their own deaths.
Tldr: God I'm never going to recover from the brain rot that one asinine piece of dialogue from the dub gave me.
Matt: "My Grandma taught me the true power of the maple leaf!"
I had to substitute it for arse, sorry. Exploratory fic I began to explore some character dynamics and what the lifestyle of 4 growing nations and their mother in their last real time together would be like in a slightly Post-Roman Iron Age estate as the Migration period picks up and Germanic peoples cross the North Sea to make a home. I believe of these earlier themes have their origin with @balladofthewhitehorse.
5th Century AD, Cumbria
"Rhys," Alasdair appeared at the fence line, his face gloomy. Rhys had stopped here for his mid-day meal halfway between where the shepherds had herded the sheep in the northernmost glen and their home behind on the hill. It'd been a long two days in the hills. He offered the cider flask to his brother as Alasdair approached, his frown deepening. It wasn't raining, and the day's work wouldn't have been hard. Bad news, then. It was always bad news.
"What is it this time?"
"Rot in the south store."
"Oats, rye or wheat?" Rhys asked. The rye they might go without, but the rain hadn't come so early that anything else should rot.
"Oats,"
"Fuck." Rhys sat on the low wall of flagstones and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Fuck,"
He glanced up. His brother looked even more dour. "Gods, what else?"
"Seven horses," Alasdair said, sitting beside Rhys, boneless and upset.
Rhys gaped at him. "Seven? That's three more than were sick yesterday!"
"It's spreading." Alasdair shrugged helplessly. "I took the healthy ones into the third stables, and it didn't help."
"Is it distemper?"
"I didn't think so," Alasdair said. "They weren't so feverish, and there wasn't pus, but now I don't know.
"So, no horses to sell this year. At least half the oats are gone."
"Rhys." Alasdair's ingot grey gaze fell heavily, and Rhys glanced at his brother.
"I know," He said, and Alasdair didn't look convinced. He looked at his elder brother with a firm look. "I know."
"If we can't pay the tributes…"
He thought of the mustached helmets of the German kings and exhaled. "We don't know that we can't pay. There's plenty to sell."
"It's not just a lack of goods I'm worried about. It's been a bad year for everyone. There might not be anyone to sell to."
"There must be," Rhys said, pulling his cloak tighter over his shoulders. "There will be. We'll figure it out."
"I suppose all we can do is pray," Alasdair said.
Rhys frowned. Alasdair was the one with a mind for numbers, but he always worried, and they always managed before. So what if the horses would not fetch the total price if they were ill come market day? There was still the wool, the fine worked saddles he and Alasdair had made the year before, and plenty of cattle, sheep, honey and mead to sell. There were options. They had options.
"I'll see to the horses; if none of them die, we'll be fine," Alasdair said. "We have ore too. I might get a good price for my boar spears."
"Maybe," Rhys said. His hope was teetering precariously on the assumption that his brother was overly worried.
There was an unspoken sense of doom between them, both praying their worries were unfounded. Rhys grimaced after they parted ways at the outer gate, Alasdair marching off to the stables and Rhys to the poultry yard and the hives. One of the women in his mother's service alerted him to the fact that another of the hives had gone dark with rot. Honey was expensive, and now there wouldn't be enough to sell and use themselves over the long winter. Rhys waved her off with a pinched-off smile.
He stood in the poultry yard for a long moment, leaning against the half gate that kept the hens, quail, and ducks safe in their enclosure and away from the hounds. He watched Arthur tumble after a goose, laughing as it squawked and ducked him. Their dinner pail of scraps and grain was sitting neglected as he played, but Rhys looked on, letting him play. They'd have to keep more honey than what he'd wanted to sell, if only for Arthur's sake. Honey cakes with stored apples and cheese or on bread were one of those precious things that would cheer him when the worst of the winter gloom gripped him worse than any of them. Arthur rolled to a halt, cackling as the goose bobbed angrily and finally noticed him.
"Rhys!" He grinned, leaping to his feet and making a beeline for him. He exhaled a loud "oomph" as Arthur knocked into him, throwing his arms around him. "You're back!"
"I was only gone a night," He laughed. "How is Mother? And where is your cloak? Have you lost it again?"
"The same," Arthur said. "Maybe a little better. She laughed this morning when I fell right on my arse out of bed. Bridgie pushed me."
"Good! And you probably deserved it. You kick in your sleep." He replied, and his smile was genuine. Mother had at least made an effort to shake her recent gloom then. She'd been thinner, paler, and sadder than he'd ever seen her in the last few years, and it hadn't gotten any better as the days became shorter. "And your cloak?"
"I forgot it!"
"You'll catch your death." Rhys ruffled his hair. "Hurry and feed the birds and come in for dinner."
Do you still have that one shot of France, Canada and England. Where France wants to talk with Canada over a bottle of whiskey/wine (?) but it goes south and he says something hurtful
And later when Canada goes home to England they have a moment where England takes a shard of glass outta Canada's head
I really liked that one and was sad when your other account got deleted and i couldn't read it anymore
Yes! It's on AO3 here and crossposted below. After the abandonment of Canada in 1760, there was very little cultural exchange between France and French Canada for nearly 150 years. Informal relations were established in 1800 with the opening an office for Quebec affairs in Paris, but there was very little cross-pollination. If you look at Quebec culture today, there are often more British and Belgium culinary and cultural influences than Metropolitan French. There was quite a lot of bitterness that remains to this day but it began to ease up in the 1910s. Francis' next try will probably be better.
It's a quiet day on the front. As quiet as it ever got, at least. François found his boy on infantry duty and decided he'd best make his peace before another Verdun took him entirely or a sniper shot the glass bottle of whiskey Alasdair had gifted him for the purpose and wasted it. He approached in the early morning when the world matched his uniform, the world awash in a fog as blue as the virgin's cloak. He produced the bottle and told the boy he had something for him.
"What do you want?" Matthieu said. Not unkindly, but there was a hardness to his eyes that François didn't know what to do with. Had it only been a year since the boy had wept for him while hauling him back from the front at Ypres? War drained the colour and life from them all, even the art. And, he s supposed, even Matthieu had been one of the beautiful children of the New World.
"To talk," François said, the bottle of scotch in one hand as he lifted them both. A gesture made not in surrender because he would never surrender, no matter what anyone did, allied or enemy. But still, he lifted them, hoping to lower the boy's defenses.
“Is this a bribe?” Matthieu said, tugging down the green sweater. It's Arthur's handiwork, both the clothes and the fucking attitude. Blunt and calculating. His son is as much Arthur's child as his own now. “What's the plan then? Get me drunk until I break down and forgive you?"
“It's a bribe,”
“You always did give better presents,” Matthieu said, tipping the flask towards François. “Ardbeg Uigeadial. Single malt made from the freshest loch water in that godforsaken island. Uncle gave this to you didn't he?”
François smiled. “He said it was your favourite.”
“More like it's the strongest liquor of his I can drink two glasses of without being sick everywhere. Since I was raised on wine.”
François flicked his gaze at the boy. But the set of his shoulders hardens. “Hate it now. Tastes like sugar,”
They've spoken since 1880. The boy had opened an office in Paris, and reached out, seeking correction and education. There were many in Canada who could be ironed out if brought to France and reformed. That was important now. He needed Canada as a refuge for his own best minds, for at least as long as this war lasted. Matthieu refused to even drink wine. What he had of Alasdair was one thing, but to so forsake the France of his birth?
His son drinks again. “You might want to demand whatever it is you're going to demand before I sober up,"
“I don't want anything," François said, and it was at least half honest.
The boy snorted so hard he coughed, looking incredulous. "Well, that's a fucking first,"
François looked at him, a little proud of the intelligence there. “Well, perhaps to invest more in Quebec and salvage what’s left of your French,
“You mean what’s left of your French,” He held the bottle tighter and François frowned.
“All French is my French. I am France,”
“My French is Canadien now,” Matthew shot back.
“Don’t be foolish, Arthur has stunted it, and you. All your potential,”
“You did that. Arthur has stunted nothing,” Matthew said and rose to his full height, proving his point. “Whatever my full potential is, my father has done more to invest and nurture it than you ever did. To say nothing of Uncle Alasdair. They kept me, they loved me. And you will not speak ill of my family in front of me.”
“You would do well to remember where you are. This is the center of what keeps you at all separate from your brother,” François stated.
Matthieu seethed, but said nothing. He is dishonest and weak. The rest of the whiskey is downed easily and Matthieu pops a few tablets at the same time he's throwing it all back. The boy does that every few hours now, more often when he looks especially ill, but still not so much as anyone with land in Europe. Arthur has spoiled him, shielded him too much, made him weak, and diluted everything good the boy ever was. François had brought him into the world as the son of the great fighting empires. And now here he is, medicated and pathetic. Matthieu made to get up. François stood and stopped him with a hand on his arm.
“Matthieu—”
“And don't you dare call me that!” He shrugged the hand off violently. “You don't get to call me that. It isn’t my name,”
“It’s the name you were given in the eyes of God when I christened you,” François said.
“I wish you hadn’t,” Matthieu snapped back.
“What is it you want me to say? Do you want me to fall on my knees and beg for your filial piety? Confess my sins?”
A flash of rage François has never seen contorted his face. As a boy, Matthieu had been the perfect, sweet visage of a chapel cherub, big blue eyes and a round pink-cheeked face framed in golden curls. Then, he had never been able to hide anything. Everything showed so clearly. Deprivation easily hollows into his face, he was pale the moment he ever felt ill, exhaustion shadowed under his eyes, distress showed on red and blotching cheeks. His fragility had been on display for all the government in Quebec and all the court of Versailles.
But as a man, the twisted shadow of François and Arthur, at this moment, he was all anger, sharp and strong.
“I never wanted you to say anything! I wanted you to try!”
“Try what?”
“Anything!” Matthew snapped, wrenching his arm away. “To try and take me back! I could have fought I just needed help!”
“I was beaten in the field!"
“You sold me!" The boy shot back, furious. “I don't even think I cared if you actually managed it. But any sign— just anything to tell me I wasn't some—some worthless mistake! Some inconvenient trinket!”
For a moment, he wanted to tell him he wasn't, that he never had been. But, he thought, the boy deserved the truth. He was silent.
"You abandoned me, sold me away, told the entire world I was worthless and you want what? My forgiveness? My loyalty? Well, you can't fucking have it, because it belongs to the man who raised me and didn't discard me like last years fashions,"
"Matthew— you have to understand. It wasn't personal. Politics, the will of kings and rulers do not always align with our personal wishes. That is how politics goes!"
“I know how it goes!” Matthieu swiped ferociously at his face though there were no tears there yet. “You left me. Not a letter or a word. And then you sold me for a sugar colony. You before that you sat there and called me your own dear, sweet boy for decades and meant none of it. And you sold me. For sugar. I'm not angry you sold me, I'm angry you were a fucking coward,”
”I gave you life. Your people are your own because of me,"
"My people are my own because of an ocean between them and where they came from. And ten-month winters and the fucking glory of my land and everything else that is mine," Matthew shot back. “You called me worthless for decades but you would tell anyone on earth but me! Everyone said so and you did too. An expensive failure. Nothing compared to some warm islands. You told me how precious I was, how sweet. and then you abandoned me without a word. I wanted nothing more than a sign! Anything that said you hadn't regretted me!”
“I never did!” François took his son by the face. “I made you, named you, raised you out of love. Named you for all the apostles because I am millennia-old and have one son. Matthieu, gift of God himself. It's your name, your language. You were created with good intentions. But my god you were inconvenient,"
He thought, then, he might have selected the wrong word. Matthew's face dropped and François' heart sank like a stone.
“Thats French love then? Affection until it's inconvenient? You know what? Fuck you. Father's a prick but at least he has the decency to be constant. Go fuck yourself, Monsieur Bonnefoy,”
"That’s the reality of what we are. I did not raise a fool. You know perfectly well it's my language you butcher and my blood that made you, boy. Don't forget it."
"Everything you abandoned is mine," Matthew snarled. He took up his rifle and the bottle of whiskey and stood. "It's no more yours any more than a century old blood transfusion would be yours. I'll fight your wars, I'll bleed on your land, I'll speak your language, but I do it because the father who bothered to keep me alive bids me to do so."
——
"Matthew?" His father's voice was booming to match the hard clack of his boots on the expensive marble floors. Matthew had been given permission to billet wherever his father ended up, sometimes here in some fancy chateau with command, sometimes a hole in the mud like any other soldier. He tried to pretend he hadn't seen Arthur, to swing around the doorways to wherever the hell the washroom here and hide until he had his emotions in check. He was drunk and he wanted to curl up and cry.
"Matthew, what on earth is the matter with you?"
"Nothing," He said.
“Have you been drinking?”
“Yes,”
Arthur gave him a judgemental sort of look and Matthew was so fucking sick of the hypocrisy of everyone he almost burst into tears right there.
“Really, lad, what’s the matter?”
"Nothing's the fucking matter!"
A brow shot up at the tone, and the terminology used. A warning to correct himself. Sighing, he popped off his helmet and leaned against the wall to meet his father’s gaze, reluctantly.
"Nothing is the matter, sir,"
"You're bleeding, lad," Arthur said like he wasn't always peppered with a bit of shrapnel. It was a convenient cover to give himself a reason to look Matthew over and Matt loved him for it.
"Am I?" He touched his hairline and found a line of blood, thickened and half dry. It must have been from a shelling nearly two days prior. “It doesn’t hurt,”
"You are," Arthur said, frowning at him. "Are you concussed?"
"If I am, no one's said anything. And Monsieur Bonnefoy didn't notice,"
"It's not his job to notice," Arthur said, thumbing the wound. There was fresh blood oozing from it, and his fingers caught on something sharp. It must have been deeper than Matt had suspected, and he'd missed a piece of metal, tending himself without a mirror. The one he used to shave was shattered in the same bomb blast that had driven the steel bits into his forehead. Arthur pushed him onto a fancy marble bench that could be hosed down later. "Sit down you fool, I'll find something to pry that out with,"
He sat there, grateful it'd only been a day since he'd been given a shower and a new uniform. Arthur reappeared without his jacket, sleeves rolled up and doused his forehead and a pair of surgical pincers in alcohol and poked around as delicately as he could. Matthew winced and Arthur gave him a sympathetic sort of look.
“Christ alive lad, you’ve got a piece of shrapnel the size of one of your brother’s spiders embedded into your skull. Do you want morphine?”
Matthew snorted. “Must be bad if you’re offering me drugs,”
Arthur rolled his eyes. “Every time you’re in pain, half your soldiers start sobbing on the ward. Drives your sister mad.”
“I’ll be fine,” Matthew said.
“Are you sure?”
“I’m already drunk,” He returned, swaying in place because he was. “Just get it out,”
“Well you do certainly smell like scotch,” Arthur sighed. “Well come on, hands on my shoulder and hold on. I’ll be quick. Scream if you need to,”
He clutched his father’s shoulders and nearly tore his shirt but didn’t scream. The world did disappear when steel scraped his skull. What was left of his vision, largely lost without his glasses, faded out and the entire world dissolved into a roar for a moment. The sound scratched like nails on a chalkboard as the metal came disjointed, but inside his head. He retched and came back to his head in his father’s lap, cheek cradled in his elbow and a needle and thread between his father’s fingers.
“Jesus Christ,” He muttered.
“I told you it would hurt, lad,” Arthur scolded, but kindly. “I’m almost done,”
He didn’t exactly faint, but he blacked out a little until the stitches were finished. He’d somehow ended up in a chair in a far darker, cozier place. His father had a tea tray on a side table. Forehead itching, he lolled to the side.
“Ow,” He commented.
Arthur snorted, shoving a cup into his hands. “Stings a bit, does it?”
“A bit,” Matthew agreed, curling into the back of the chair, exhausted.
“I want you awake for another hour or so, make sure you aren’t about to bleed internally and then you can sleep as long you like, all right?”
He nodded, trying to keep his throbbing head still. It hadn’t hurt before Arthur yanked it out but now his head throbbed and he could feel his pulse everywhere.
“Drink that,” Arthur said. He’d nearly forgotten the mug in his hands.
Matt stared at the cup. “I think I might be sick if I try,”
“You’re more hungover than in pain, lad. Drink it,”
“Sorry,” He said, sipping at it. It was loaded with sugar and he didn’t feel quite so shaky as the third glug went down. “Thank you,”
“Of course,”
“I mean it,” He said, fervent. “Really, Dad, thank you,”
His father cleared his throat, instantly uncomfortable. “Yes, well, you’re welcome. Try to avoid any more mortar fire, hmm? That’s your third concussion this spring,”
“Dad?”
Arthur looked at him, brow raised. Matthew blinked and he was closer, standing over him, the mug Matthew had been holding in his hands like he’d spilled it.
“Its all right,”
“Dad,” Matthew said again and pressed his body against his standing father’s, nestling the healthy part of his face into his chest. Arthur lifted his arms to hold him, “Thank you for keeping me,”
“Keeping you? What? Company? Well I can’t just let you bleed out on the flood, lad,”
“Keeping me at all,” He whispered. “When you didn’t have too. When I wasn’t worth anything,”
“Where on earth is this coming from?” He felt his father’s hand in his hair and felt the rumble in his chest as he spoke. “You’ve always been worth something, Matthew. And you’re worth your weight in gold, you foolish boy. And the good lord knows you’ve grown enough,”
you and your goddamn chunky, rosy-cheeked babies. i had the violent urge to be pregnant >:( I'd love to see a fic about bilge rat Arthur soothing his fussy baby aboard his ship, heart-breaking every time the ween takes in a breath to cry and just being a loving father
You and me both bud. I'm lucky I look like warmed over death right now or I'd be ripping out my IUD and sitting on the first acceptable tinder dick. And I don't even really like dick. And ahahaahhaa ask and ye shall receive. Baby Alfred on a boat. I posted part of this fic several months ago and part of it dates to 2019, but due too a shortage of fucks and an excess of 'hgnnnnn babies' it is freshly expanded and edited so here we go. On AO3 here.
1580s, The North Atlantic.
Arthur rallied after a few sips of rum enjoyed, like so many things were these days, in the captain's quarters he'd commandeered. He peeled off his doublet and shirt, hung them from the chair and dressed. In the fresh clothes he picked up his freshly woken, cranky, fat baby. He likely would have slept all night, but Arthur wanted to hold him again.
All smiles until they'd gotten on the ship, Alfred had been nothing but grumpy since. A sailor's son he was but seawater his blood was not.
"Hello, little one," He said, watching as sleepy fists twitched and a yawn brought the baby's mouth open wide into the world's widest tiny 'O.' He couldn't help it. He was a beautiful baby. Arthur kissed him—the kind of kiss where his mouth just grazed the edge of Alfred's fine downy hair before he got a fat little fist giving the world's softest hammering to his sternum. Cheeky little bastard. Arthur grinned.
"Now, my boy, what sort of way is that to greet your own father?" He said, adjusting his position and sitting on the long wall of the bench against the windows. Alfred liked the sunlight and while he seemed old enough to sit and even to pull himself onto little legs, he seemed to like the clouds through the wall of windows that formed the wall of this deck at the stern. The little body sagged double-chin forward into Arthur's chest, buffered by the crook of his arm, and greeted his loving father with a "Bah."
"That's right." Arthur nodded, approvingly, adjusting the weight so Alfred against him in a more dignified manner. "Your father needs a proper bath, but that has to wait until we make port in England,"
He got a decidedly grumpy, pinched-up face from Alfred, but couldn't help but be charmed as his round little face snuggled against his shirt anyway.
Undaunted, he patted his boy's cheek. "Yes, love, I know. Father's stinks. Now, where are we going?"
"Bwuh," Alfred burbled.
"Close enough," Arthur said. "Bath is a place in England. Which is where you and your name came from. Alfred the Great of England. England," He drew out the word by its syllables and gave the baby a bounce. "Land of the Angles. And that, my little one, is not for my jaw, no matter what the bloody French say, hmm? What do say to that?"
Alfred hummed him another small baby sound of disinterest. He was looking away. Following the line of sight, Arthur realized the baby was looking at the sky again. Pale orange and dotted with clouds above the peaceful wine-dark water, the summer sky was fading away to night.
Struck with an idea, he swaddled a fussy, kicking Alfred into another blanket and placed him in the half of a rum barrel the ship's carpenter had fashioned into something like a cradle, and placed the entire apparatus as close to the glass windows as felt safe. The bench groaned and Alfred fussed as Arthur sat at the end of the great cabins leather covered bench and braced his back against the wall.
The baby whined a tragic little cry when Arthur bent over to open the nearest window to widen the view to the darkening sky.
"Shhhh," Arthur said, and two chubby little hands reached up. "I'm right here,"
Letting Alfred hold his thumb and last fingers, Arthur waited for a moment. A long pause as Alfred made sad but fading little sounds and then went wide eyed, looking at the view of the clear and darkening night sky. The little O of his mouth popped open in surprise and the happy wiggle his whole body did ended in a full body roll onto his back.
"Oh!" Arthur said and brushed the little one's mussed hair back. "Aren't you a clever one! Good lad,"
"Gah!" Alfred responded, enthused and released one of Arthur's digits to wave excitedly at the stars.
"Yes! Yes, love. That's Orion the hunter!"
Alfred listened, enraptured, as Arthur launched into the story of Orion the hunter and his great love of the goddess Artemis who when she lost him, scattered his soul to the heavens to forever twinkle down on them. Arthur watched, fascinated, as Alfred took in the sight of the darkening night sky, and his big dark blue eyes reflected every point of light.
There was a knock at the door, the cook come with the porridge Alfred seemed to like well enough. He looked at the age where milk or soft foods would do and there'd not been much in the way of the option of breast so far. He'd learn more in England. But he picked Alfred up in his roll of blanket and shushed him when he whined, upset the stars were a little further away and grumpily took his porridge. He didn't always eat the whole bowl since on the ship, and often it came right back up if the water was anything more than glassy. But today was calm and the baby ate a bowl and then another, still mostly focused on Arthur blathering about Orion and fixated on the twinkling heavens.
He still blinked wonderously at the sight, and each one grew longer and slower, delight softening into the heavy tiredness of being full, warm and very, very safe. Alfred tilted into Arthur's chest as he cleaned a bit of oat off his soft smushed cheek. Arthur noted, with a bit of amusement, that his son looked very much like a tiny, jolly drunk at the end of a rum cask, blinking blearily and happily at what he'd never quite seen so clearly. He was a good sleeper, especially when full and he blinked again, eyes falling shut a long moment.
"Mmhm." The baby breathed, utterly content with being well fed and being held but clinging to wakefulness to only look a bit longer.
"They'll be there tomorrow night, my heart." Arthur said, sweeping bronze curls off the smooth skin and thumbing his softening dimples. "I promise. Sleep again, now. And they'll be there again tomorrow."
Alfred's eyes shut and he turned his whole head to rest on Arthur's forearm. He kissed his forehead.
For prompt 12 "your hands are so cold!" Okay, so this is kind of outside my usual timeline because it's the 18th century and Arthur's being nice to Matt, but I was feeling dangerously tender towards rat man and his ghostly tree baby so the following resulted. Quick note, I set this too early for ships to actually come up the Saint-Laurent but just pretend Arthur's such an amazing sailor it's possible. Also, scurvy was such a common phenomenon in early Canada it was literally just called "spring fever" and everyone just kind of dealt with it until spring kicked in properly and they could eat some greens. But Arthur to the fucken rescue, I guess. I've really got to stop writing while I've got a fever, honestly. Also, my ancestral citrus obsession is showing lmaooooo. Also on ao3.
Quebec City, Late 18th Century
Father arrived as the last of the vegetables in the cellar went rancid, and the weather began to turn to the bizarre warmth only Quebec could bring days before another freeze. The world at this time of year was grey, like smoked glass. The river ice broke up into jagged chunks, and olive-green water carried the ice slowly northward. Ships had to fight their way downriver, but under Father's skilled hand, they managed even this early in the year. The only colours in the world were monochrome. The Laurentian mountains sometimes showed a little green when the fogs thinned enough, but the white of winter was gone. Only grey rain and greyer ice and blackened trees.
On another grey day, two nights after landing, Arthur finally disembarqued the ship he always preferred to Quebec and came to stay. There was always rain, and Matthew met Arthur at the docks with his waxed sailcloth cloak pulled over his head and as straight-backed as he could manage.
"Matthew," Father nodded. Matthew was grateful Arthur wore his navy blues in Quebec rather than the hated red coat and was pleased to see he looked well and healthy for someone who had made the winter voyage. He looked less annoyed than usual.
"Father." He nodded back, striving to control himself. After a long winter alone in the little row house in the shadow of the walls of Quebec City with only the single letter from Alasdair that had made it on the last ship of the year before he'd saved to read on Christmas, he was half mad with loneliness and the spring afflictions as stores dwindled to practically nothing. "You look hale!"
He looked grand and important. The miserable freezing rain didn't seem to touch him. Matthew felt pitiful in contrast, huddling under his cloak and the twenty pounds lighter he always was when the spring rationing thinned him down to a shivering shadow of who he was when the harvest was fresh. It was too early even for tapping the sugar maples.
"The governor has readied rooms for you at the Château, sir. His men will be down to collect your things."
"I will be staying with you," Arthur said, stone faced.
"Me?" Matthew blinked. Father had never stayed in the narrow little rowhouse squashed between the pharmacy and the bakery. The government had always told him it was too shabby and cramped.
"Yes, lad."
"Are you sure? You'd be more comfortable at the Château."
"Yes, quite sure," Arthur said, briskly ordering sailors about as he took off at a quick step up the quay, and Matt had to run to keep up.
"Sir!" He called out, three strides behind. "You really should stay in the high town; they'll be snubbed if you stayed down here with... with me."
"Yes, well, I can't help that. They'll just have to understand a father's need to stay with his child! Come along, lad."
Matthew didn't know what on earth to say to that, except he was suddenly warmer than he'd been in months. Too lightheaded to keep up a run, he had to slow down and heave until he had his breath back. Arthur looked back, paused at the next street, and gathered him under one arm when he caught up. Blocks from the rest of the hard-faced British, Arthur spared him a kind look for the first time, and Matthew buried his face in his side and even received an affectionate squeeze back. They walked the rest of the way to the house at a much more leisurely pace, keeping under the eaves as much as possible.
Matthew retrieved the iron key from his pocket and threw open the door. He hadn't bothered to light the fire that morning. He was always half-frozen, no matter what he did. It wasn't worth the waste of firewood. He rushed to light the hearth and threw open the heavy curtains. He'd cleaned recently, at least enough that he didn't shame himself in front of Father. Still, he sat his father at the table in front of the hearth, poured out the last of the cider he'd been saving for the next cold snap, laid out what bread was left, and dug out what little cheese and venison there was to be had.
"I'm sorry, it's not much," He said, anxiously lighting one of the precious beeswax candles with a taper from the fire. Was it always so dark in his home? He tugged at his clothes, and his father had the grace to give him another kind look.
"We'll purchase more tomorrow." He said. "And I've brought you some things."
Matt thought of the small cache of silver coins he kept in a false book in the small stack he owned, and the thought there'd be more candles and food without spending it made him a bit lightheaded. He didn't live a bad life, minding the expenses and profits of the Kirkland investments in fur and fish this far north, but a lean year was a lean year. They spent the evening chattering away, only eating very slowly. Between sips of cider, he asked of his uncles, the shipping, the navy, and all the other things he only ever received third-hand news of. It wasn't often he got letters, much less a visit, and he babbled away, asking every question that popped into his head. Arthur indulged him until the candles burned low, long after the sun had set. He shouldn't have been muddled on that little cider, even underfed as he and the province were that time of year, but he felt falling down drunk as he climbed the ladder to the freezing loft, automatically leaving the warmest place for guests.
"Matthew, lad, come down."
He awoke in the morning to the same splitting headache and joint pain he'd awoken to every day for nearly a week now before he remembered he wasn't alone in the cold, dark little house and sat up, realizing he'd woken to his name.
His father stood on the ladder to the loft bed, head poking over the floorboards and offering him a hand.
"Come along; I've started the fire and been to the market."
Matt flushed, incredibly embarrassed he'd slept long enough that he hadn't done his own chores.
"I would have done that! You've only just arrived!"
"It's no bother!" Arthur said. Matthew protested but took the offer and let himself be lifted down from the loft. He didn't weigh very much, especially this time of year.
"Your hands are so cold!" Arthur said as soon as his feet were on the floor. Matthew hadn't completely undressed and shivered even in the warmer-than-usual space. He tilted Matthew's face up to look at him more closely in the dim light the windows allowed. "Are you well?"
"As well as anyone is this time of year," Matthew shrugged. "It was a lean year, and a long winter is all."
He expected a scolding, a lecture about how he should have put more away to eat for the year and been more disciplined around the holidays. He was shocked, instead, to find himself being embraced and put to bed in his usual place near the fire where he'd directed his father the night before.
"Oh, lad." His father mumbled as he wrapped Matthew in blankets and put another log on the fire. He slept intermittently, as he often did this time of year, trying to spare what little light and food were left before true spring came with its greens and game fattening on the new grass.
"I'm sorry," He said when Arthur brought him a bowl of soup richer than anything he'd had in weeks as the larder dwindled and made him eat it all still wrapped up warm. "I should do that."
"Don't worry yourself, love."
Sleepy and full, he sank back into sleep. He felt feverish upon waking to his own cough, and the day's last sunlight was already fading. He was alone. Had he dreamed Arthur completely? Being called love? No one called him that. No one said that. He must have conjured it all, his half-mad brain wishing for a company that wasn't the single Christmas letter from his uncle read and re-read until he knew every word.
He woke to arms around his back, pushing him up in bed. He was reluctant to be roused, figuring it was another fire dragging him out of bed to be soaked in frozen water as he stood in the line of a bucket brigade. But there was a hand in his hair.
"I know you want to sleep," Arthur said. "But I've brought you something, and I need you to eat it."
He opened his eyes. He'd convinced himself his father's visit had been a trick of his mind, and he was so happy to see him he almost missed the round bit of sunbeam in his hand. An orange, half unpeeled and split into sections. He buried his face in his father's chest and obediently took a slice of orange from him. He'd had a fresh one only twice before, both in France when the orangeries were new, and he wasn't yet so much a disappointment Papa thought to bother with him sometimes. He stared at the section in his hand and then at Arthur.
"Why?"
"You're getting scurvy."
Matt stared, baleful. Arthur picked up the meaning.
"Because you're my child, that's why." He said firmly. "Now eat."
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality
Anya is LIVE right now
FREE
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
Day 1 (Feb 5th): Historical || Winter/Cold. @royalredbrosweek After Pearl Harbour was bombed in 1941, Churchill got his ass on a boat, and they went to go hash out what the war would look like. The British were saved by the bombing of Pearl Harbour, barely keeping themselves in the war and only saved from starvation by massive flotillas of armed convoys making the journey from Halifax and Montreal too the ports of the United Kingdom. It was enough to keep them alive, but it was only when the convoy system expanded from New York and Boston and other points of access that the Allies started hoping. I've got salt about Churchill that extends much further than what's outlined here but ehhhhh. TW for alcoholism. And yes, Churchill did drink that much.
December 1941
HMS Duke of York
"You forgot your coat." Matthew approached his father.
"I'm fine," Arthur said. He was in the first few layers of naval blues, peaked cap on his head and chain smoking cigarettes he wasn't supposed to have, but Matthew smuggled from America every trip anyway.
"Sure, catch your death before we make Annapolis. That'll be grand. The British lion passing out before Congress that'll be sure to impress the yanks."
"The lion cub should mind his bloody tone," Arthur said, giving him a smack upside the head that was more gentle and affectionate than anything, and he took his coat off Matthew's arm. "I do know the water."
"And I know the cold." Matt gave him a pointed look. His father pursed his lips around the cigarette but didn't argue. "Were you planning on eating breakfast before or after you froze to death?"
"Depends; how much are you going nag me about a morning tipple?"
"I won't if you actually eat something," Matt said and took the cigarette from his father as Arthur pulled his coat on and buttoned it.
"Mind sharing?" Matt asked, handing the cigarette back and flexing his hand at his father's pocket.
"With your lungs?" Arthur snorted. "In this weather? Best steer clear, lad."
"I'm not the one who's lungs have been within kraut bombing distance for two years." Matt returned, and Arthur shook his head.
"Find your own vice."
"I will. It's called maple pecan icecream, and I'm going to eat Alfred out of Whitehouse and home when we make port."
"Mm." Arthur sighed. "Unrationed breakfast. That'll be nice."
"Spreads not too bad downstairs if you want to actually eat something."' Matthew suggested, about as subtle as a headbutt.
"In a bit." His father said and turned back to the sea. And there, that was the odd point of tension, why his father was being malleable but was still sober at ten in the morning. "I haven't made this crossing in years now. I forgot how much I like it."
"You mean you haven't talked to Alfred in years now, and you forgot how much you missed him."
Arthur's eyes flicked up and Matthew knew he should mind his tongue but it was harder as of late, to demur when he was responsible for so much. To his surprise, his father shrugged. "It's your letters he replies to," Arthur said. "Not mine."
"He's done what he can."
"I know," Arthur said and flicked out the last of the cigarette. He didn't reach for another and leaned heavily on the railing.
"You're worried," Matt observed, aghast. "The war isn't even over, and you're worried about sharing power."
"Alfred doesn't respect the water," Father said, leaning into the rail. Matt hadn't said anything as he approached, and anyone else he could sneak up behind on without being heard. But his father at sea was as close to omniscience as existed before God. Father hadn't even opened his eyes, but he knew when Matt was close enough to hear. "He doesn't respect the rules of the Great Powers."
"He's never liked to sail," Matt said, neutral and calm and making sure to never sound criticising. Even on their shared Great Lakes, there were American ships, but rarely America himself, but God forbid the spare ever sound disapproving of the heir. "And maybe its time for new rules."
Father was hardest to read when he was like this. There was worry, but more than that, there was calm, as he looked at the sea. In his element, at peace with it. Matt shivers as the water swirls beneath the deck, fading from grey to clean clear green. He hates that colour green and has since his father dragged him to sea after Alfred's revolution, determined to make less of a failure than him, and happy to use the sea as his crucible.
"Not all great men do," Arthur said. "Winston has always had contrary opinions on the navy, and he was First Sea Lord."
Matthew snorted. Fucking Churchill. He hadn't liked him in South Africa and hated him by Gallipoli. "Great men don't kill children."
"Matthew." Arthur's tone was vicious but his eyes flicked around them. He needn't fear being overheard, Matthew had known the deck of the battleship was empty of anyone in earshot before he spoke. He was feeling bolder than usual, with two Canadian ships before and behind the vessel they currently entrusted their souls to, but not bold enough to disagree with the Prime Minister openly. "Mind your tongue."
Matthew kept his tone even. "Even if he overheard he'd be too drunk to remember it was me. He's been in the whiskey even earlier than usual lately."
"Matthew," Arthur shook his head. It was a sign of change, if anything was, that a shouting match hadn't ensued. In fact, his father looked oddly comforted. He leaned into the railing and closed his eyes.
It was an odd sight. The happiest Matthew had ever seen him was nearly two centuries before in a storm, clinging to the deck, screaming with delight at a rogue wave looming over them like God's disapproval. Green and rabid looking with white froth at what Matthew could only describe as the mouth, the wave had stood still as glass for only a moment as lightning split the sky like slate shattering and pierced the frothy top. It had glowed, a jade mountain split with veins of silver. Matthew remembers calling for him. Father, please come back! And Father's response? Wild, unhinged, cackling laughter. A sea hyena daring the lions of the unknown to have his throat. Hic sunt leones. Here there be lions. Matthew remembered reading that on the uncharted edges of maps of the English or Dutch or French had not yet fill in when he was born, as he was growing.
Lions or no, death wave or no, Matt had followed his father across the impossibly slick deck, hands out stretched. Because he always followed. He followed Alfred and he followed Father and only into the blizzards of home did he lead himself. He was half rolling across the rail when lightening flashed once more. Time stood still, the wave held up with a puppet string of lightning. But then it broke, the thread snapping. And Matt's hands had only just closed around Father's arm when it fell on them and the ship broke into thirds. Water in that sort of mass was solid, coming down on them as solid as any sort of rubble could. His head had been split open on the steel deck. Father said his brain had practically fallen from his skull like a yoke from an egg. Father's shoulder had been ripped out of its socket, Matthew's hand had refused to let him go, refused let him slide into the depths. He half remembered how father had screamed at him for being a fool. He and Alfred were just alike, angry and malcontented when they were bored. And Matthew was so very boring, always doing dull things like keep them alive.
Peace was boredom. And boredom without his children or liquor was usually a mathematical equation for the usual explosion. But hands on the rail, the chop of the North Atlantic mild for the time of year, he seemed... placid somehow. Older, calmer. Maybe it was the news that Alfred, the Christ to Father's God, was now in the great game, had saved them.
"Come on," He said, disturbed as he was pleased. The business of who saved them after the wave dropped had never been his job, just keeping hold of his father no matter what occurred. He tapped a hand on the rail. "Let's have breakfast. I'll even pour some gin into the orange juice if you eat something besides toast."
Zee brings Alfred some food herself rather than let him wait for the orderlies with the tea cart of mashed peas and oatmeal. She doesn’t know why she cares. He’s probably eaten better than her for years now. But she does it for Jack, stealing him handfuls of the golden syrup and oat biscuits that come in the post and bits and pieces of home that come through the black market. Dried pineapple, tinned mangos. Or the oranges that the French fruit sellers hawk at the train stations for 5 times what they’re worth because homesick Australians will pay that and more for a bit of familiarity. Then there are father’s warnings, of how they need Alfred if this war is going to end without destruction of their father’s empire. Her family.
There are fewer patients in the officer ward, and they are near enough to England that wives have taken the ferries across the channel to sit with their husbands and fathers. It’s not a sight Zee is used to. She feels most at ease amongst the Australians, and her own, with their broad clipped accents and stubborn refusal of formality. Amongst the Anzacs, even in a dress, she’s “the Kiwi sister” or “Sister Kirk” because there’s not a single Australian on earth who can pronounce a whole sentence without shortening something in it. Her own, and Jack’s are so far from home.
There is no one to visit but their mates who trickle in one or two at a time when their sergeants allow it. Most of her soldiers lay alone in their beds until someone comes to tend to them. Zee sits with them when she can, writes their words home for them, lets what she has tamed into a mild accent flare into full New Zealander. Sometimes she could give Jack a run for his money in sheer brogue. But when she can’t sit with a man, what visitors do make it onto the wards consist of tired, grubby soldiers. Men who are a day or so’s march and a hot meal from being hospitalised themselves. It's a far sight from smart-looking society wives who simper over their ‘poor, poor dears’ in the officer's racks. What has been a normal sight thus far in the war is now strange.
Alfred lays alone, turned on his side, so she can’t see his face or his hair, just a broad set of shoulders. His spine running between the muscle of his back shows from the dip in his collar and the divots and shapes are the same as Jack’s. But she has never sewn Alfred up. Jack still limps when he’s tired, a souvenir of the shell that nearly blasted him back to Sydney from Suvla Bay, his arm aches when he’s stood with a rifle to his shoulder too long from where he was shot at Fromelles. She knows where he burns when the outback does. She knows the sound of his breathing at night when they’re huddled together, fearing being far from home when they were children and artillery and ottomans now that they’re grown. She knows Jack. And yet here is something the same marking Alfred as much family. She blinks and taps the hard sole of her boot down onto the boards and he startles awake, turns over and kicks so hard he nearly topples out of the narrow bed.
“Mhmhuhwhat?” He manages before he’s blinking up at her, rising on one elbow, looking owlish and a little lost. His hair is properly mussed, not the accidentally-on-purpose scrubbed back look of a soldier on leave looking for a girl he doesn’t have to pay, but the boyish disarray of a child woken from sleep.
“I brought food,” Zee says, because she has to say something. The sight of him, prone and peaky with the smudges under his eyes is uncomfortable, too… vulnerable to match up with the caution Matthew has about him whenever Alfred is close. She has only seen him on horseback really or strutting about trying to reform the entire of the Entente all by his lonesome. An active young man with the zeal of youth, Father had said, with a wave of his hand. Bloody showboat, Matt had said with a shake of his head.
“Oh,” Alfred says, sagging a little.
“No need to sound so bloody disappointed!” Zee shakes her head. “Don’t worry. Dad didn’t make it.”
And there’s a smile. Not the one that resembles the dazzle camouflage of damaged convoys, but a little crooked and bright in his blanched face.
“Heard the nurse say that the company cooks are French?”
“Now! Before him, it was a Londoner. Bastard killed the last MO with a Beef Wellington that might have once been a sheep’s brains, so we didn’t have much of a choice.” Zee handed him the tray and took a seat in the chair there. It looked so much emptier here than it did on the other wards. An offended look at her profanity came from a woman in a velvet coat that made more than she did in a month and just to spite her, Zee turned the chair around and spread her legs wide to straddle it. As unladylike as she bloody well pleased. Alfred looked at her with a little more respect than he had a moment before.
“You’re joking,” He said like genuinely believed she was having the piss with him.
“Nah,” She grinned. “I brought dad his share myself,” And the grin gets a little wider. It turns up to one side a little, gives him dimples of all things. Jack has dimples when the smile is soft when Zee is presenting him with food or he’s falling asleep and his dreams might not be full of screams for the moment. She warms to him then, against her will but fully cognizant of something new.
“A woman after my own heart,” Alfred laughed.
“Is it true you shot dad in the jaw?”
“Yes,” He said.
"Huh," She clucked. "I always half thought Matt was having me with that."
"Nope. I popped a bullet of in him at Yorktown and the fucker took a chunk of cannonball at Brandywine."
"Did he die?" Zee asked.
"Oh yeah." Alfred said, and his smile was genuine now. "Both times. Matt wrote me." He sat up and holding his bowl, sat cross legged on the bed, leaning towards her. " He looked more alert than he had in ages since Matt had hauled him in from the front . "How about you?"
"Morphine." She said and he looked shocked. She smirked. "Twice."
"No shit,"
"Should have been three," She said. "But the third time was messy and Matt sat up with him all night to make sure he didn't aspirate on his own vomit,"
"He's always been a kill joy." Alfred said, shaking his head. She'd handed him the tray to set over his lap and he handed her the second bowl and some of the bread.
Today it’s some sort of soup that uses real stock and smells garlicky and rich. There are thick slabs of brown bread with actual butter. Not the ‘war spread’ of margarine they usually have. Alfred might have shown up with Kansas Flu and a massive attitude problem, but also with money and guns and supplies. God the supplies alone.
"This is good." He said, lifting the bowl a little in emphasis. "Thank you."
"No worries," Zee replied and dipped the butter smeared bread into the steaming soup, sighing happily as it melted and she took a bite. Alfred peered at her.
"What?"
"Nothing," he shook his head and sat back. He was the only officer in the ward without flowers on his bedside table. They ate in silence for a bit.
"Are you feeling better?" She asked eventually.
He bobbed his head, swallowing and nodded. "Yeah. And thanks for letting me crash, by the way. My hospitals aren't really set up yet and Matt's were really full."
"Better than leaving you in that rotting tent they had you in." Zee shrugged. It was her job.
"Still," Alfred looked sad, thoughtful. "I appreciate it. And the soup."
"You looked like you could use the company." She replied as neutrally as she could. "Has Matt been around to visit?"
Alfred shook his head. "He got shot somewhere around Amiens or whatever it's called and Dad let him back to England."
"Lucky him,"
"I prefer France." Alfred said, shrugging.
They chatted a bit about the dismal weather, how hard it was to sleep with the English being prissy cunts just beyond the room dividers, the quality of food being better back home. Alfred talked about mail he got from home and bragged that Alice Roosevelt was still sweet to him, writing to him in a way that made him smile. Zee was a little jealous. Alice Roosevelt had even made the papers in New Zealand. She was beautiful, and the rumours of her indiscretions were true from how Alfred smirked. They discussed the war a little. And Matt's weird habits with girls and the stick-up Dad's ass. He said it was the size of a baseball bat, she insisted cricket but they agreed it was massive.
She decided, halfway through the conversation, that she liked him. She didn't trust him, and she got the impression he could talk the big green lady in his New York Harbour out of her concrete knickers, but she liked him.
The empty bowls when on the cart for the orderlies to deal with and when Alfred started yawning, still easily fatigued from his bout with trench fever, she bid him good night and retreated to the night nurses station on the ward up the path. The reassignment division was quiet; the patients were largely healed soldiers who were getting their last day or so of rest before discharge, being watched for relapses and secondary infections. The evening passed in a haze of paperwork and fever and pulse checks. Even here, the soldiers had flowers on their bedside tables. Smaller bouquets than in the officer's wards are more likely to have come from a local girl or the Red Cross than wealthy relations. But it bothered her how Alfred's bedside table had been bare.
It was dawn when she made her way to her bunk through the hospital camp, once a race track. She stomped along the wooden boards of the walkway, yearning for home. She always got ferns and flowers, curled and dried, in her letters from her school friends, who still wrote. There were dried gum leaves and golden wattle in packets from Australia that Jack got in the post from contacts he had with the government, stations, and scientists. She saw a bunch of flowers under a lamp post, shaded against the sky to keep off the zeppelins. She didn't know what they were, but in a fit of affection, she bent and collected a fistful of them, snipping them with scissors from her apron pockets. A can from the kitchens would be the best she could do for a vase, but she dropped a pence just to make them last and returned to the convalescent ward and set them on Alfred's bare bedside table.
Can you pleaseeeeee do what you did for Zee (the pictures that you think relate to her) for Alfred?
A lot of these are even more vibes + style based than the Zee ones because there's so much fanart of him I'm mostly just looking for story references rather than face claims.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality
Anya is LIVE right now
FREE
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
Thinking heavily about Arthur who, more than most people, is characterised by hunger. Hunger for power so that he can stand up for himself. Starved for touch because he denies vulnerability. A craving for the sea at his back. Literal physical hunger gnawing in the pit of his belly because there's always something to be done that's more important than eating. A constant need for more.
Hungry Arthur who, only in the last twenty years or so, has learned how to be full (with France's help).
jbbartram-illu
prguitarman
pixelskylines
theartofmadeline
izzy806
dailybridgerton
turnnoffyourmind
