England ‧₊˚. ⸝⸝ 11 (req)

The command tent smelled of damp wool and gunpowder. Reports (all of them bad) are scattered across the makeshift table, illuminated by the flame of a single lantern. The distant crack of musket fire from the colonial lines is a mocking reminder.

You are not here as a soldier. You are a diplomat, a reluctant observer, and something else. But above all else, you are here, in his space.

England stands with his back to the tent flap, his red coat pristine but his posture utterly broken. He isn't looking at the maps. He’s staring at nothing, his hands braced on the table, knuckles white. The arrogant, imperious mask he wears for his officers is no longer there.

He doesn't turn when you enter. He knows your step.

"They're using the land against us," he says, his voice hoarse, stripped of its usual clipped precision. It's not addressed to you, not really. "The forests, the rivers... they know it. We don't. We march in straight, glorious lines into an abattoir of their making."

He finally turns. The lantern light hollows his cheeks, painting shadows under eyes that hold a grief rapidly curdling into despair.

"They are using my tactics," he whispers, the words laced with awe. "I taught him- them those. Against the French. Against the Spanish. And now they turn it on me."

He takes a stumbling step toward you, not in anger, but as if he's losing his balance in the world. The pride is gone. In its place is a bewildered, profound hurt.

"Tell me," his voice cracks. "Tell me what I did that was so monstrous. I gave them law. Commerce. Civilization. I... I built them. And now they would see me burn for it?"

He reaches out, his hand trembling slightly, not to grab you. He is a father abandoned by his favorite child, staring into the abyss of a future where the sun, for the first time in history, might actually dare to set.

“Tell me,” he says, his voice barely audible over the wind. “Tell me how to make him… stop.”