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There used to be toy soldiers.
It is a particularly bad day, a week after veiny vines began to creep up his throat with a burning itch, that he remembers (forgets) this. A bad day is one where he thinks of Alfred an unreasonable amount, and at this point he might be better off measuring days in bad and less bad, so few are the good ones. He could try sorting them by the times he is so upset at Alfred he curses his name and the times despair chokes him until his green eyes cloud into mournful blue, but it would really not make his situation feel much better.
Toy soldiers. What colour were they? With a dreadful feeling, he finds he cannot remember. Red it must have been, but were the buttons gold? Black? Six or a dozen little army men? It has been 100 years, so it is no surprise that this memory is the first to go, but it is still painful for Arthur to catch himself forgetting.
A telltale petal wriggles out from under his tongue, and he coughs it out with a brief and violent sputter. He wipes the blood and the petal away, and for once thanks July 4th for the excuse it offers him now. Funny, or not, because Arthur’s life is all really such a joke.
He wonders how long it will take for him to forget it all. Until Alfred is but a flicker in memory, a vague sort of fantastical dream one wakes up and tells a friend about. A year, a decade, a century. For him, maybe never and always.
At the least this is true: It takes longer to forget than to fall.
—
The next memory Arthur loses is the since-then of their war. Papers and ministers and long nighttime discussions showering his vision—that must be what it was. Who ultimately signed the loss? He realises he doesn’t care.
It is a good thing he does not remember whatever came next between them. Arthur imagines it, though: heartbreaking silence, words made to simmer with poison, freezing distance. This flower is blood-stained white.
Of course he does not forget the rainy field.
He still has not forgotten that he never saw a tear that day, where the skies pulled the colour out of all life and corpses leered in the muddy field, and Alfred, Alfred did not cry. Arthur did. Shamelessly. Words all sobs and ears ringing, he heard Alfred whisper something, face wrenched into something unnameable. Arthur never did get to hear what he said. (Maybe, though, it is his mind playing tricks on him again. Maybe he just doesn’t want to remember.)
Even with the memory intact, Arthur does not know what it means that Alfred never cried. Was that a farewell? Was he being kind or cruel? And what then did it mean when he brushed a tear away, two hundred years later after Arthur gifted him the bicentennial liberty bell? Out of mirth, no doubt.
—
Eyes bright and blue and, even when the face blurs. Arthur would almost be able to navigate across their ocean by that image alone.
But the visage is all wrong now. Interlaid with decay and damages and Matthew and him, now—the proportions are incorrect. The spirit is not right, even if technically the boy Arthur can still imagine is Alfred.
He wishes he had a photo of Alfred when he was small. Half a century too early for that, Arthur supposes wryly. At least those eyes like fire stay seared in his memory.
(An empty shock: tomorrow, he wakes up and his portrait of a young boy holds only embers.)
—
It is Francis that next reminds him of what he has lost.
Reminiscing about the old days at the bar (yes they agree they could use healthier hobbies, no they never try), it somehow turns to the topic of all their old hauntings.
Brothers. Jean. Matthieu. Alfred.
Arthur says isn’t it odd how Alfred alone was so violent when there was nothing to lead up. The back of his neck feels funny.
Francis raises an elegant eyebrow. Don’t you remember those early signs?
It’s frightening how little he does. Of course there were tensions, of course, of course… Which were, again? Now his mind stutters and claws, desperation to sink his teeth into anything solid. Francis would know better, and with that realization, Arthur nearly chokes on the flower that comes shooting out of his throat—the bud red like coats and unmoving bodies.
The original argument has been long-forgotten by everyone else. Not just because of those Lancastrian roses—no, England and America the nations have buried their grudge with their men and with each new generation of children that grows up and embraces a brother across the Atlantic.
It is long past time that Arthur should join Alfred in taking a long pause to answer only, "I don’t know" when asked why they ever fought.
—
Next to walk out of his mind are the ordinary afternoons. Sunny things, days when the wind would scoop up dandelion crowns and they’d have to use pebbles to pin them down. Etiquette lessons. Carelessly balancing on rocks in the creek. When Arthur really didn’t know anything but put on the show of a haughty king, and Alfred leapt to join him in everything.
They had a meadow, just the two of them, at the edge of a lake which even Matthew and Francis never visited. Even when Arthur is drunk, his tongue locks before speaking the clearing’s name. It’s his. Those afternoons were his, those jovial play-days were all his.
Then roots grow from his heart and yank it away from him.
He recalls the big picture. Arthur was happy. Alfred was happy.
But it’s like myopia, individual blades of grass unrecognizable. All of the contents of their conversations, the sound of Alfred’s pattering feet that made Arthur felt so light, the way he carried himself and the quirks that Arthur could tease out. Even what they did on rainy days. The little details that matter the most have been banished.
On one particular day, Arthur had finally managed to bake scones that hadn’t opened a portal to Liam (—can’t remember how). With no hesitation, Alfred had bit down and grinned at a chuffed Arthur.
"It’s my favourite!" "It’s my favorite!"
Which did he say before he turned his back on him forever?
—
…There was a second battle between them, spared half a line by history. It burned them both and carved lines into land and body: in ‘76 Arthur learned Alfred was greater than him and in ‘12 he learned Alfred was worse too
Alfred is a monster. Absolutely furious, musket drawn and eyes ablaze he ravages English territory. Here come the Americans, ready to uproot the British from the American continent!
His stiff march is a matter of honour. (He looks ready to be the next empire.)
They meet at Niagara. Eyes like blue fire, Alfred spits what Arthur has always feared and believed, then with terrifying glory pierces into Canada. This is a lesson Arthur would never have dreamed he could forget.
York blooms red.
A year later, Washington goes to flames with the poppies.
—
Something proud, something beaming, and a little bit shy. His Alfred smiles and the wheat plains stand and crane their necks towards his glow. Arthur can’t help but let a smile creep across his face to match it.
It has been a long day. But faced with such a gentle smile can anything really be so bad? A grin was the first thing Alfred greeted Arthur by, from almost before anything either of them can reminder. He gave away kindnesses with so much ease, the first to make Arthur believe in unconditionality, and did he even know?
Over time Arthur has lost faith in nearly everything save that light.
In present day that pocket of sunshine appears again, and Arthur takes mindless steps to approach until he is almost touching that glow.
“Alfred…”
Choking on sunflower heads, Arthur stares at him.
Matthew stares back.
—
Alfred’s laugh was the most precious thing.
A golden sound, more like a twinkle. It loops in his head like a wind chime on the breeze, blowing him away down memory lane. The whooping giggle of a game won, exasperated snorts at something ridiculous Arthur had done, harmony when they burst into laughter together.
In present year, he hears a shadow of that laugh bark from a seat down the table. A petal tickles at his throat, tempered only by the knowledge that already Arthur has lost the original sound to an echo.
The only laughs Arthur can coax out of Alfred these days are scraped red-rust.
—
The very last thing he forgets is their war.
Of course it is last to fall, that bloody anguish was always effortless to summon at the sight of the first storm cloud or last day of June. He has tugged on that agony countless times over the decades, taking shuddering breath after shuddering breath to celebrate its importance. It can only be because Alfred was so dear to him that he left such vivid pain.
When finally it comes for that memory too, Arthur wretches. Futilely, he tugs on the leaves and flowers spilling out of his throat as if he can rearrange his organs and set history back into place. Too late.
Before he can scream, he’s whisked to a 1700’s battefield.
A wet plain. Surrounded. Alone. There is a musket aimed at him, and he cannot recognize the person holding it steady on the other side.
Arthur’s chest twinges and stabs of equal hurt and betrayal echo through his bones. This is pure agony, made worse by the dread in his gut and dullness in his head; he feels as dead as the bodies piled behind him.
"Why?!" He sobs this like an actor reading lines. Nothing feels real, except maybe the crumpled expression the opposing soldier makes. Something is terribly wrong.
God, he has lost something. He’s lost it. He’s lost.
—
The petals claim his century-long heartbreak and at last, at last, there is no more great tragedy.
Roses and blood on dead men. Nobody alive keeps the memory.