angleterre | [ video ↳ english ] oo2

Current Location: discedo

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[ video ↳ english ] oo2

Hello network.

[ He's got a better idea of how to use the device now, and he's actually holding it correctly. Text transcription into other languages was another skill he picked up, but being this is the quintessential English prick, Arthur sees no reason to try and communicate with those that don't speak his language. ]

Currently I'm located at-- [ A glance about. ] --err, in front of the Latimir apartments in Discedo. I have a question for those who are willing to lend their assistance: The 'monsters' that surround the area; can anyone offer anymore information regarding them? Hopefully other than those prone to shouting about rail tracers and other inanities that won't help my cause.

My second question might be more alarming, though I urge those that are listening not to be frightened by my request: I'm attempting to locate a few weapons to aid me in my... [ His eyes flit to the side. ] ...explorations.

Do not hesitate to contact me at this frequency, or to come here if you are within the area to talk. Thank you for your time.

[ Being vague on purpose? What do you mean he's being vague on purpose? ]

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[Yet again, hardly anything registers as important, except two things.

France turns and watches England as he paces away. The rest is nothing, inconsequential babble prattling out from those disgusting lips. What interests him though, it catches him like fire and dry grass.]

I was not finished speaking with you, Angleterre. [His pistol--oh it's so very outdated by England's standards but still quite effective--is out, aimed steadily at England's back. The lock and hammer make an audible click. The dull edge of the guillotine flashes sharply; his eyes are cold. Awake. They see beyond where they stand and betray the chains wielded by his citizens tearing him apart.]

Turn and face me, lapin! Have you grown so pale and weak that you've forgotten you should never, ever turn your back to me?

Of course you have! Come here. Come to me with your hands raised and pray that my generosity does not run dry. There may or may not be English blood spilled on the ground today. It depends on how well you cooperate with me, you foul-mouthed sack of molding horse shit.

[Smiling broadly, France drops his rather pleasant and surprisingly conversational tone and barks the following order:]

Turn!

[ He was going to ignore him, continue walking and ignore the Frenchman's demands. But at the sharp click of the gun, he hesitates, steps slowing, until he's only twenty steps away from him. ]

[ If it were his France, he'd keep walking, unabashed by the threats. His France was a pacifist (read: coward), his France wouldn't dare shoot him, especially not in such an undermining manner. ]

[ But this isn't his France. ]

So insistant. [ It's spoken with the snarled curl of his upper lip, to which he slowly turns, head tilted to the side, and swallows, staring back at the shadows pooled in the eyes of his old adversary with his own dull glance. He blinks, then takes a step forward, and mortality be damned, he'll defy him if he wishes. ]

[ So he keeps his arms crossed, frown stretched across his features and walks back towards him, until he's just a few steps before him, deliberately standing just before the gun aimed at him, whether that be between the eyes or at his heart, he doesn't care. His own temper is flaring, and within moments of standing there, it consumes his mind with a voracity capable of eclipsing his reason. ]

Of course you'd draw a pistol on an unarmed man, you fucking coward. You always were a fucking coward.

[ And he raises his chin, glancing down at him, hands no longer trembling with the subconscious levels of fear from before, rather gripping into fists that threaten to split knuckles against the skin of the other. ]

All-bloody-right then, Francis. I'm here, and when you're done running that shit-filled mouth of yours, tell me what it is you want from me you unbearable piss stain or politely fuck off and let me be on my way you insufferable cunt. If you want my blood, then take it, if you want nothing at all, then leave me be, but if you're just here to waste my time with your melodramatic cock-all dramatics, then you can get fucked by something very sharp, and very big. How's that sound then?

[There is a very uncomfortable pause in which this France seems like modern France. He blinks, though his hand is still steady, holding the pistol to aim at England's chest.]

. . .

You are unarmed? When you made the request for supplies, I at least thought you had something with you already.

[France almost slumps in what looks like indignant disappointment.] Why would you meet with me unarmed? You're at least carrying a knife or something, are you not?

Mon Dieu, you have become even more stupid and lacking in intelligence in your old age!

[He raises the pistol to England's face, hardly caring if he is unarmed. This will make things so much more simple.]

See! I am not a coward. I have guessed that I still exist in what is, for me, such a distant year. What I want from you, Angleterre, what you will give me--

--is the truth of the state of my government.

[Yes. He is quite serious. He feels as though he's hanging by a thread, or standing on the fine edge of a sharpened blade. There is no one else he trusts to ask, to tell him the truth or any semblance of it--as England might very well lie to his face. There is almost a wistfulness to his voice; a desire and tiny flickering hope for a time when his government and citizens are more stable than... than this. Is the price paid in blood and terror worth the outcome? Is what he must endure a failure?

That he would even ask these questions and that he would ask this of England reveals to his own mind the desperation of the man left inside. Francis, the lover, the philosopher, hating himself for even losing confidence in the republic, detesting himself for asking his rival or the fact that he must do so in the first place...

It is much easier to do with England at gunpoint.

If he can even believe the nonsense that he is from nearly two centuries in the future. The thought twists his mind and tugs at the beginnings of a headache. There are so many thoughts, memories and feelings that should not be his, that make no sense--there is hardly any room for what is left of Francis Bonnefoy.

Pretending at being a paragon of strength, France inwardly feels as though he's been cut into ribbons.

Let it endure.

Let it fail.

Let there be compromise.

There can be no compromise.

The voices, all belonging to him. They are each France, reaching out with desperate hands to claw him into a new era of existence--possibly, he fears, to obliterate every part of him that once was. For him to become an entirely new nation, to live on, or to die and be replaced by another.

Buried in the dark, Francis screams at them to be silent.

His eyes narrow and his entire body is a mass of outwardly still, inwardly writing tension. He wants to scream at the top of his lungs and strike England across the face with the hard wood of the firearm in his hand. He wants to pull at his own hair and tear away his own skin to bleed out the poison that is making him so sick. So shattered.]

Has the republic endured? Answer me.

A simple yes or no will suffice.

Christ.

How exactly to explain this... Can't say I've ever fancied French history much. [ Feel his sarcasm, Francis. ]

All right, fine. The answer is yes.

And no.

Let me make you aware of something, and I know this might be difficult for your rather minuscule brain to comprehend; regardless of the fact you are clearly not you as I know you to be, and that you shall always be my enemy, you're not exactly my top priority at the moment. Due to... a certain and most unfortunate agreement we reached in 1904, -- [ Pursed him and held breath, and the moment lasts an eternity before he finally exhales on his words. ]

--we're allies.

So, I was counting upon that fact to think there might be the slight chance you didn't have the intention of shooting me.

Now, [ He motions to him, seemingly ignorant of the pistol now. ] As to your question, allow me to elaborate; yes, you are a republic. But no, the Republic has not endured. It's in its... fifth incarnation. Oh Christ, all right, give me a moment here. [ He holds up his hands. ] First Republic, I'm guessing you're in currently, lasted until this one very short arsehole came about and decided he was going to make you into an Empire. When he was done pratting about, some King I don't care much about came back, then I think the aforementioned short arsehole's nephew came along and brought your Republic back. Then some other distant relative to one of your King's came along and decided he was going to be the 'ruler' and not the King even though we all knew that was bollocks, not that I was paying attention, and he... did away with the Second Republic. Then the arshole's nephew came back, made another Empire, you lost fabulously to Prussia, established a, what am I on now? Oh right, Third Republic, lasted until this very important war which you don't need to know about yet in which you became a bleeding madman and something about the French State, something something, then there was a Fourth Republic which crashed and burned and yes, now you are the Fifth French Republic.

I think you're collecting them or something, really.

[ A finger to his lip, which he taps a few times before tilting his head. ] Oh dear, I suppose that wasn't very simple at all.

[He listens as he often does, though some in their infinite stupidity--like England, for example--would say he cannot.

France listens and takes it all in as best he can, but unfortunately he can't.

Not that he did not expect a long and difficult struggle, but this--]

. . .

[He lowers his pistol and shoots England in the foot.]

You did not hear me correctly.

I said that a yes or no would suffice.

[ When one is immortal, pain is a trivial thing. Hunger is a passing thought, thirst is a minor itch, and although death can be attained, it's never something to fear. Arthur's grown up his whole damned life as an immortal, waving pain off with the slightest thought and smiling through having limbs removed. ]

[ But that? ]

[ That hurt. ]

BLEEDING FUCK! [ Down like a lead zepplin and snarling, because that is really something else. ] WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?

[This is France standing over Arthur, reloading his pistol. He is unmoved except that he seems to have gained back some emotional footing.

That was very liberating.

At present however, he's forgotten that England is mortal, so the reaction has him raising his eyebrows slightly. France's expression is cruel and unfeeling--vindictive.]

Stand up. Are you going to shed tears for me, Arthur, or will you face me properly?

[ There's a flurry of curses and he does feel tears prick at the corners of his eyes; he hasn't even had a papercut as a mortal yet, so being shot in the foot by a rather antique pistol is more pain than he knows how to express. But as France taunts him, he snarls and and scrabbles at the ground with his fingers, lets out a huaaaaah sound and manages to slowly rise to a knee with a pained noise, then after a moment, finds his way to get some sort of standing before him. ]

[ It's enough time to feel his anger flare, his temper break and the adrenaline rush wash away all thoughts of logic, and gun or no gun, he lunges at France. ]

[Purely out of surprise, France stumbles back and falls. His knife, pistol and communicator clatter to the ground.

...

Shit.]

[ His fist draws back as soon as they've hit the ground, and despite the feeling of searing pain in his foot, he slams it into France's face, only to regret that a second later because that hurts like fuck when you don't have immortality as a painkiller. ]

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[ video ↳ english ] oo2

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WHY

BECAUSE FUCK YOU ENGLAND THAT'S WHY

HE DIDN'T DO ANYTHING

okay gonna write this tag and then after you reply we'll move to the entry?

Works for me!