Title: My Brother Britannia (Ma Brātīr Pritani)

Rated: T

Genre: Family/Drama

Disclaimer: Hetalia belongs to Hidekaz Himaruya.

Summary: When the preparations for the Celtic festival of Samhain get underway, England is left out. When Wales goes to comfort him, he encounters the ghost of an ancient empire, an age of glittering gold, and the realization that England, despite everything, is still his brother.

Ireland was beginning to drive Wales mad.

It wasn't so much the incessant humming, which he had persisted with ever since the meeting had started. Nor was it the way he had his boots up on the table, not only scuffing the antique cedar wood, but twitching a toe in time to whatever song he was mentally singing. Not that Wales was particularly adverse to song making - there was a reason why he was known as the Country of Music - but having the same bars of an Irish folk ballad being whistled at him for the past three hours had left Wales willing to cheerfully throttle the older nation.

And yet, all that wasn't the reason behind Wales's discontent. No, the reason was Ireland just so happened to be happily flipping through a battered copy of the Mabinogion. Wales had been around at the time those historical tales had been blended with myth; hell, he had self-edited nearly half the book. And yet the Irish nation was reading it without the slightest indication he knew or cared just how valuable of book of Welsh mythology it was.

And he knew it, the bastard.

"You'd better finish up there, Eirinn, before Chuimrigh here explodes." Scotland said eventually, in his lazy northern drawl. Wales glared at him, the viciousness of his expression only intensifying the look of amusement on Scotland's face.

"It's the classics, for God's sake!" Wales thumped the table. Not that it did much good; all he was left with was a throbbing hand and a look from each of his brothers that suggested they thought he'd gone mad.

"And we all know exactly how much the classics mean to young Bhreatain Bheag here," Ireland grinned wickedly at Wales's expression, leaning back out of the way of the younger nation's attempted swipe.

"Yr Alban!" Wales whined, rounding on Scotland. "Yr Alban, back me up!"

Scotland raised both hands in the air, directing a mock-accusatory look in the flame-haired nation's direction. "Now now, Eirinn, we're all here to discuss the Samhain. Tormenting Chuimrigh can wait for another day." He grinned easily at his younger brother.

Wales turned in his seat to face Ireland. "Now give me back the Mabinogion!"

"Oh, is that what this is?" Scotland chimed in, reaching across the table to pluck the book from Ireland's hand. He cocked his head, studying the cover. "I thought it was an elaborately decorated doorstop."

"Yr Alban!" Wales groaned. "Give it back! It's my book!"

"Guys, please." A weary Northern Irish accented voice sounded from the opposite end of the table. "We're meant to meet together to discuss the Samhain."

"We are discussing it!" Scotland protested vainly, pointedly ignoring Wales's persistent tugs at the Mabinogion.

Northern Ireland raised an eyebrow, somehow managing to portray a world of sarcasm in that single gesture. "Yes, I can see that."

"Tuaisceart Éireann's right." Ireland's tone of voice made it sound as though he did not want to admit it, but when Wales looked, Ireland seemed as relaxed as ever, leaning casually on the two back legs of his chair with a sort of laid-back handsomeness Wales had always privately envied. Ireland turned to Scotland, grinning. "So, Alba, what are you doing for the Samhain?"

Ireland's tone made the northern nation guffaw. The laughter ran around the table like an infectious imp, and soon the Celtic nations were all laughing. Wales finally managed to free the Mabinogion from Scotland's grasp and sat back, flipping protectively through the pages to ascertain none had been damaged.

Unfortunately Scotland noticed, and didn't hesitate to instantly get on Wales's case. "Doorstop all right, Chuimrigh?"

Wales glared, holding the Mabinogion out of his older brother's reach. "How's the skirt, Scot?"

A palpably disapproving shiver ran around the table, and Northern Ireland whispered. "Not cool, Bhreatain Bheag."

"Don't worry, North," said Scotland, looking over at Wales with narrowed eyes. "Chuimrigh's just antsy because he's away from his sheep."

Wales was on his feet in an instant. "That's a stereotype, you…"

"Guys," Ireland cautioned. "The Samhain? Remember?"

"Um…" Northern Ireland's eyes widened as he looked over Wales's shoulder. He waved to catch the rest of the nations' attention. "Incoming."

Wales whipped around and, behind him, he heard Ireland sigh. "Oh no."

England was walking to them over the green grass – for sentimentality's sake, they'd decided to have the meeting outside in the sun. Wales found himself regretting the decision; perhaps it was just past hostilities exaggerating the moment, but England's presence seemed to cast a shadow over everything, suddenly making the tranquil scenery seem not-so-nice after all.

"I'm out," Northern Ireland stood up.

"Yeah, so am I," Ireland was quick to second the younger nation, clearing the table of his various mythological books and papers remarkably quickly. "Have fun Alba, Bhreatain Bheag."

"Cowards," Scotland muttered as the two nations walked off.

"For God's sake Alba, I swear you guys all live in the past. England's not like that anymore." Wales said, more forcefully than he'd intended.

Scotland raised an eyebrow at him. "And you'd know that for a fact, would you?"

England reached them, and they stopped talking. For a moment they stared at each other and the awkwardness stretched between them, sharp and painful, like a plain of ice.

Scotland was the first to break the silence, switching to English. Previously they'd been speaking their respective languages, but now that their brother was here, there was no point. England had never made any attempt to learn any of their languages anyway. "What are you doing here?"

England faltered at the harshness of Scotland's voice. "I was just…" he looked uncertainly at Wales, but the younger nation kept his face carefully blank, arms folded across his chest. The Mabinogion lay abandoned on the table; Wales caught England's curious glance at it. "I was just coming to see what you chaps were up to. Still preparing for Halloween?" England's carefree chuckle fell flat and strained.

"I think you'll find," Scotland said coldly. "That it's called the Samhain. Which you'd know if you'd ever bothered to hang out with us."

Both England and Wales flinched. Wales glanced sharply at Scotland, slipping into Welsh to spare England the embarrassment of the conversation. "But Alba, haven't you forgotten? He used to be…" Wales flinched silent as Scotland stood up, stopping him with a single harsh glare.

"Get out of here." His tone was as flat as a pane of glass, directed towards England. There was no hint that there might be further discussion, no friendly welcome.

England stared at him and Wales caught his eyes narrowing. "Escī ma brātīri."

Scotland froze and Wales felt his breath catch in his throat. As far as they knew, England had turned his back on that life long ago. But the rolling, lilting words that had been banished when Rome invaded now spilled so easily from his lips, as though he had never stopped speaking them…

England's expression wavered, smiled, and Wales could tell he knew what they were thinking. "Esnī touti…"

Scotland snapped. "Get out of here!" he screamed. His ropy, long-fingered hands found the Mabinogion again – the thick volume, the doorstop – and he drew back his arm to throw.

Wales lunged forward. "Alba, no! That's…!"

England's expression went from confident to shocked in a split heartbeat before the heavy book collided with his face. He wheeled away and Wales saw tiny droplets of blood, spinning like a ribbon.

"My nose!"

"Go away!" Scotland roared, and Wales felt the pain in his voice as clearly as if it was him experiencing it. "Go away, and don't you dare speak that language again, you turned your back on it, you're not him anymore…"

England swore and spun around, racing for the edge of the clearing. Wales saw his back, the white shirt prominent against the greenness for a brief instant, before he was swallowed by the trees.

Then Wales whirled around, and slapped Scotland directly across the face.

Scotland didn't react to the stinging force of the blow, even when it pushed him back several steps. He stayed silent, staring at his brother's retreating back, chest rising and falling in time with his heavy breaths.

"I shouldn't have done that, should I?" he asked finally, still staring into the trees.

"No you shouldn't," Wales chided angrily. He stooped, retrieving the Mabinogion, and carefully flexed a bent page back into place. "You idiot, now I'm going to have to go and apologize to him." Irrational anger caught his throat and before he knew it, he was yelling. "You and Ireland are both too stuck in the Goddamned past to realize times change! He only wanted to see what we were doing – he could have helped us! For all you know, that might have been his way of making up for all those times he never spoke to us!"

"He's such a hypocrite," Scotland muttered, folding his arms.

Wales let out a short scream of frustration that actually made the older nation back up at few paces, eyes widening. "You Goddamned, Goddamned idiot!" whirling around, he headed for the trees, following the route that England had taken just moments before, determined to find his brother and apologize.

The darkness in the forest was coloured with a light hue as it fell through the leaves of the canopy; dusk was approaching. Wales's teeth began to chatter, and he slowed, wary, taking in everything around him with a new light as the sun dipped behind the horizon, staining the sky blood-red. The wind stirred restlessly, rousing the fae that Wales knew were suddenly alive, lurking, waiting.

The Samhain had begun.

Slender trees striped the green landscape but at that moment Wales could not have felt less peaceful as he walked along, breathing in the heavy smell of vegetation, trying to figure out where England could have gone, and how to get himself home safely. In all likelihood, England had probably gone back to his house to hide himself in the cavernous mansion, and storm around for a while, raging, surrounded by mementos of ages long past …

A voice filtered through the trees, and Wales stopped.

"Esmī andāga dacrū onos, windos, drucos a ougros… wediumī tamēssīcās ne anova…"

It was those words again – lilting, rising and falling, tumbling through the splayed branches and twisted undergrowth like ghostly spectres come to brush aside memories with long, dark fingers. England had never been the best singer, his rough singing voice more suited to belting out tired punk ballads from the 80's, but somehow that roughness seemed to add to the song, ululating in a long, eerie wail that made the hairs on the back of Wales's neck stand up.

He hurried towards the voice. "England? Are you alright?"

The song faltered, shivered, then died a gruesome death, notes flailing and twisting in a sudden scream.

"What's wrong? England?!"

Wales pushed through a latticework of branches, and suddenly he and England were face to face. England swallowed audibly. His face was bone-pale in fear, wide eyes suddenly appearing too large for his face.

"What's wrong?" Wales repeated, softer.

England pointed behind him with a shaking hand. "H-he…"

"Who? Who's there?" Wales demanded frantically.

England's lips moved soundlessly, terrified, but Wales suddenly understood, heard the word as clearly as if it had been shouted. "Rome."

Wales felt his blood turn to ice.

Rome. Of all the ghosts of the Otherworld, it had to be the Roman Empire to find them on the night of the Samhain, where the veil between the living and dead grew paper-thin and fragile, fragile enough to make them easy prey for beasts with claws to rip…

Wales hurried forward and England, trembling, followed him. They got halfway across the deserted forest clearing before England stopped with a small, petrified gasp.

"T-there…"

Wales's eyes riveted to the furthest point of the clearing, and he was standing there.

Tall as ever, possibly taller. For a second the starlight flickered, bringing to Wales's eyes the illusion of a muscular figure wreathed in blood, before he realized it was only the folds of a long, blood-red cloak, long tatters flapping slightly in the small breeze. The breeze buoyed the scent of death and carrion to their noses, the light sparking off armour as gold as the day they had first met him…

Ancient Rome turned around, and his teeth were bared in a grin.

"Britannia."

England flinched and Wales quickly stepped behind him, resting a palm against his shoulder, reassuring, encouraging, the echo of a fellow nation who had spent the last of that bloodied age urging him to never give up.

"My name isn't Britannia." England's voice was flat as he ran a hand through his hair, thin fingers twisting through very Roman blonde hair, voice falling automatically back into Latin as he reiterated the old argument. "My name is…"

Wales felt his heart both seize up and plummet downwards at the same time. Unconsciously, he leant down to hear what England was going to say next, what version of his life he would summon to defend his claim…

"My name," England repeated, certain, drawing himself up to his full height, with acid-green eyes that pierced the shadows and skin once marred by blue tattoos. "is Pritani."

A smile tugged at the corners of Wales's mouth, but he said nothing.

"Ah, but little one, you grew just as you always said you would." Rome's voice held the same cool, collected insanity it had always had, but there was a dangerous undercurrent to the words.

"You turned your back on that way of life," Rome murmured, words a dreadful echo of Scotland's rage. "That barbarian way of life you had before me is no more, or had you forgotten?" His lips lifted off teeth stained with a dark redness as he snarled, with all the ferocity of the wolves with which he had been raised. "You are nothing."

Wales's felt England stiffen and squeezed his shoulder, wishing he could do something to comfort him. But Rome was England's ghost to banish, and he could do nothing but wait.

England glanced briefly behind him into the eyes of his brother. "I am not afraid of you." The words rang hard like a bell as he turned back to Rome. His hands were shaking and his breathing erratic, but his eyes burned in his pale, drawn face, brighter than they had ever burnt in his life. "I grew further, stronger and larger than you could ever have dreamed of, I had an empire so large the sun never set on it." England hissed.

Rome's eyes never wavered. "And yet now you pine for the barbarian life of your brothers."

"They are not barbarians." Wales's felt his heart wrench at England's tone of voice. England smiled a tight, caustic smile to match Rome's, but his smile held a vindictive triumph, the cruel, mocking edge that Rome had so often used on him. "Rome, ask yourself this, aren't you the most barbaric of us all? Unlike me, you had an empire of fear that lasted 400 years. You enslaved and conquered nearly half of the Mediterranean, and Europe…" England paused and Wales knew they were both thinking of a fair-haired, blue-eyed nation to the south.

Gaul. France.

England continued speaking. The Latin words were coming stronger now, yet they were soft, pitying. "You enslaved all your neighbours because they attacked you, and hurt you, and you wanted revenge. You went on to conquer because, with the whole world under your control…" England grinned sharply and Wales saw something briefly stretch his features, a shade of the Empire he had once been. "You would have no one to fear. Nobody would ever be able to hurt you again."

It was so much of an echo of what England had told him when starting the Union that Wales almost gasped. What had he said? "We will be the strongest, Wales, and no one will ever hurt us again…"

"But you were lonely, weren't you, Rome?" England's voice went on and on, and Wales focused back on it. "You saw our freedom, you saw our way of life, and you hated the fact you had none of it for yourself. So, you sought to control us, to enslave us, to somehow capture the sense of being wanted, of being truly happy, that your life never had."

Rome stood silent, but it was England's last words that made him loose his composure.

"So no, I don't fear you, Rome. You're just like me. Both empires, both wanting…" England paused briefly, thinking, before continuing. "But I do not worship you, either, for I have something that you never had."

"And what is that?" Rome's words were more sculpted, more powerful than England's could ever be, yet they too were cracked, were strained – strained from the pressure of being an empire, strained from the force of having all his faults simultaneously picked up and thrown in his face by a country he had originally deemed insignificant. Wales saw Rome's hand shaking, saw a muscle jumping in his jaw, and felt a surge of pride for his brother.

England grinned, and his grin held the full force of all his lives – the Celts, the Anglo-Saxons, the Normans, then finally, the English – combined. "I have a family. A family that, despite everything…" England turned to Wales then, and Wales heard a tremor of uncertainty pass through his voice, a shuddering, final breath. "Still considers me a brother."

Wales hugged his brother tight just as the rising sun cleared the horizon, and the shadow of Rome left with a sigh. England's whole body was trembling from the force of his words, the tears seeping through Wales's shirt as he cried into his brother's shoulder, shaking uncontrollably.

"That was brilliant!" Wales said into England's ear. He released him, took a step back, and beamed. "Caled a rigern, huh, Pritani?"

England – Pritani - wiped his eyes, and gave a watery smile at the words. "Wales," he asked, hesitant. "Umm… on the next festival, could I… join you?" His green eyes stared into his.

Wales grinned at him. "Pritani," he said sincerely, and England smiled. "All you had to do was ask."

One thing you may not have noticed (XP) I am really, really fascinated by the history of the British Isles, to such an extent the amount of research I've done in my spare time could likely sink a couple of battleships XD

The historical period mentioned here is referring to the Celtic period of Bronze and Iron Age Britain (Britain meaning England, Wales, Scotland & Ireland (Northern Ireland wasn't a country back then)). Prior to Rome invading, a large number of Celtic tribes existed in the area we now call England. Collectively, they were known at the Pritani or the 'People Of The Forms', due to their practice of tattooing themselves with blue paint (strangely enough, no other Celts except for those of the British Isles did this). You might have heard of several of those Celts: Boudica/Boadicea of the Iceni, anyone?

The Celtic tribes existing in the area now known as Wales prior to Rome's invasion were the Silurii 'The Seed People', the Ordowici 'The People Of The Hammer', the Demetii and the Deceangii.

When Rome invaded, the lives of the Celtic Britons in England were absorbed into that of the Romans. Then later, after Rome fell, the Anglo-Saxons & Vikings from the north invaded. While a large portion of the Britons fled to what we now call Wales, I personally think there would have been a large number of them who were either inducted into the Anglo-Saxon way of life, or taken as slaves. That's my excuse for making England a personification of the Pritani, anyway XD One of the reasons I don't support the view that England is related to Germany (through the Germanic Anglo-Saxon tribes, implying that England was born when the Germanic tribes invaded) is simply: how could England be related to his Celtic brothers if he was the personification of several Germanic tribes? o.O I know family is generally convoluted in Hetalia, but surely not that complicated, that would make England and Austria something like third cousins. o.O

Oh, and the languages in this chapter. The languages are, obviously, Irish Gaelic, Scottish Gaelic and Welsh, but also small amounts Pritannica (Celtic language of the Pritani, the ancestor language of Welsh, Cornish and Breton, and closely related to a fellow Celtic language known as Gaulish).

Translations:

Scottish Gaelic:

Eirinn: Ireland

Chuimrigh: Wales

Irish Gaelic:

Bhreatain Bheag: Wales (or so Google Translate tells me XD)

Alba: Scotland

Tuaisceart Éireann: Northern Ireland

Welsh:

Yr Alban: Scotland

Pritannica:

(Pritannica's a dead language. The words used in this fic are based on a reconstruction I'm making myself :) )

Escī ma brātīri: You (pl) are my brothers

Esnī touti… : We are people…

Esmī andāga dacrū onos, windos, drucos a ougros… wediumī tamēssīcās ne anova: I am a wicked, crying person, white, evil and cold… I pray the darkness doesn't increase.

Caled a rigern, huh, Pritani?: Tough and kingly, huh, Pritani?

*yawns* Well, it's late, and my eyes feel square from looking at my laptop for so long :D Until next time.