#katya and matt || the soil of our souls

[historia-vitae-magistras]

Random question. I know you’ve mentioned how Matt’s relationships are really influenced by Alfred. Does Alfred have an opinion on his relationship with Ukraine? Or know that Matt’s kind of married lol?

His opinion is mostly that it's unsettling. Generally speaking, Matt doesn't hold a whole hell of a lot of hard and fast opinions. He's flexible within quite a broad spectrum. Alfred's seen Matt go batshit. Matt's gone batshit on his behalf and against him. For most of Matt's life it's been: for king, country and the chronic pain in the ass (affectionate) across the southern border. And then every once in a while, Matt gets fucken mouthy. Like incredibly mouthy. Tells British parliament to go fuck themselves when it's response to Ukrainian petitions was a whole lot of fuck all. Randomly builds an embassy. The national poet causing a scandal by getting their hump on with a Ukrainian activist in the 1930s.

In many ways, Alfred depends on Matt being a depressive walking anxiety disorder who is only pulled into anything by external motivation. It makes for a very easy to handle, never surprising, extremely level headed and boring ass neighbour. Basically the emotional support version of that succulent someone left in their bathroom for 15 years and still hasn't died somehow. Alfred needs Matt on the counter, not dead, doing his job.

Katya, and Matt's extremely emotional attachment to her isn't scary but it is unsettling for him. He doesn't begrudge Matt this relationship because it's mostly yearning as Matt doesn't have access to her the vast majority of the 20th century but I'm not sure if he would be so generous if it had been. And Alfred likes Katya very much after 1991 or so but before then he's not really in favor of this. The brief period Matt and Katya had after the war before the Allies fell the fuck apart saw Alfred backing Arthur's play to shack Jan and Matt up. Like it's perfectly fine for Alfred to fuck Ivan, they're hate fucking. Alfred is in denial if there are any feelings.

With Matt, there's no denying it. Matt can be apathetic, cold, stoic to the ends of the earth if he's bleeding, dying or having his heart ripped out. But he's never been able to hide love. And Alfred kind of relies on that. That it takes such an extreme level of anger before Matt's willing to let it overtake that inherent sense of love that exists. Alfred was the first real sense of love Matt had in this world and he knows that. Katya induces a similar reaction in Matt and Alfred doesn't like it. The jolt in slavic demographics they both got at the end of the 19th century didn't have that same effect on Alfred. It's not exactly jealousy but there is a certain expectation on Matt's attention Alfred expects to have. And he doesn't even need to be aware of the fact Matt makes her certain kinds of promises even if they are as limited as his power in the world is because that attachment is so obvious sometimes.

[historia-vitae-magistras]

Are there any photos or paintings that inspire or either that you have personally seen just looking at that make you go "Wait a minute, This is exactly like what I wrote/will write"?

Zee reading a letter from a friend's mother after she died in childbirth. I like the way she's kind of isolated despite being at the family breakfast table because that's... very symbolic of what her dual identity, sex and general gender presentation do in her life sometimes.

Matt and Katya at the 1919 Canadian premier of the Carol of the Bells. Off screen there is a Ukrainian choir on tour and an orchestra playing. They're both so tired. Katya in a new dress, her hair in her crown braids her forlorn hope clearly on her face with this Canadian display of her culture, a vision of what she hopes is an independent future. She has about 6 months of hope she might end up an independent democracy. Matt standing because they only purchased one seat between them, his arms crossed and his curls cropped short from soldiering and his arms because he doesn't quite remember what it is to be a man listening to something beautiful with the woman he loves, if only for a moment before she reaches for his hand and squeezes it, even if her eyes never leave the stage.

Alfred interrupting Brighid and Romano's post war reunion make out in 1920 something NYC and getting this look. Brighid trying not to make horny noises in public, Romano really glaring like 'You really couldn't wait another 15 seconds? We're trying to spark another torrid love affair over here.'

[historia-vitae-magistras]

matthew has babies in a human au? oh pls expound on those disagreements between dad matt and uncle alfred 👀 did matthew adopt them? or had them in a one night stand and took full custody?

He accidentally knocked Katya up when she was 28 and he was 21. Alfred was about 26 and furious about it because of how young Matt was and not even finished with university. And French Canada with its spectacularly high birthrate historically and Katya's native Ukraine where marriage and children generally happen a bit earlier, Matt decides to finish his degree quickly, marry her and start up that family he always knew he was going to have anyway. Francis approves because honestly the man had a child to have grandchildren after Matt was a bit of a disappointment anyway. Arthur's not thrilled about it but Matt rushes through his graduation, gets a job with forestry and fire fighting and builds himself and Katya a life. She has an agriculture and business degree but they decide she'll focus on the kids while he takes up more work.

It's not very happy after a while. Matt's always missing things with the kid, Katya's frustrated with the fact she can't commit to as nearly as many opportunities as she makes for herself because she's the primary caregiver. And then one fire season, Matt gets well smoked and when he's bitten by a tick not long after after half assing a tick check because his kid is calling him to play, gets himself some lyme disease. Stubborn as he is to make this work, it isn't until he is literally at his parents with the wean (who is a very cherubic mama's boy named Florian) because a second trimester-pregnant Katya is in Calgary on a business trip and he's literally to sick and lyme-stiff too get out of bed without crying that he's like "fuck it, you win, we need to change and I need a doctor's appointment. Ow." So he's about 26 when he becomes mostly a stay at home father of eventually four. He goes back to school part time in cultural and environmental management and when the kids are older goes back to work part time but he's really happy as a stay at home dad and occasional woodworker because honestly Katya has such clever and absolutely ruthless business brain she does much better as the bread winner lmao.

[historia-vitae-magistras]

You may have already made a post about this so sorry if so, but what are your headcanons regarding how Matt and Katya met? And how they kept touch over the years?

Love your content btw!!

Thank you! And actually, somehow, no one has asked me that on any of the blogs! I had to think and coalesce some thoughts. This got long so I am going to split it into two parts but their meeting!

The Trans-Canada railway was completed in the 1880s and finally opened up what was called the ‘last best west.’ Between the Canadian Rockies in the far west and the western edge of the woodlands that define eastern Canada in Manitoba, the prairies stretch out in what looks to a child of the eastern woodlands like a vast treeless void. Grasslands and steppes are incredibly ecologically important, but I am ethnically a clinker-built canoe lover, and they scare the shit out of me. Judging by settlement patterns, most French Canadians agreed. As the American West closed, some Americans were willing to join Canadians and take land ripped from indigenous peoples too. Alberta was a result. Concerned about American settlement, in 1896, the Dominion of Canada’s federal government coordinated with the foreign office of the British Empire to look for more settlers. At the same time, in what was then the Austro-Hungarian empire, Galicia was likely the poorest place in continental Europe, with the only other comparable example being famine-era Ireland. The other Ukrainian-speaking areas of the Austro-Hungarian empire (75-80 of that territory was held by the Russian Empire) weren’t much better off. Each government found a solution in the other. Britain, representing Anglo-dominated Canada, and the Austrians shook hands, and the flow began. The US saw the largest share of Eastern European immigration in this period, but the majority who sailed to Canada were Ukrainians. And even before immigration, the region's international ties were based on Canadian financial interests. So, what does this mean for Katya and Matt?

The scene I imagine is that while the powerful wheel and deal, two products of empire crossed paths. One of these meetings may have taken place during a summer folk festival. Girls wove wreaths of flowers into their hair and floated others down the river. Songs were sung, vodka and wine flowed, and dancers joined hands. While the Austrians and the British bargained, a young man not so far removed from his peasant roots and his own saint’s day celebrated with fire and river wandered into the edge of a valley clearing at the end of the longest day of the northern year. As a maple or spruce was decorated, the sun sank, and the last light of day fell like fire light onto a Carpathian river valley. Bonfires were lit. Against a world on fire, a child of the woodlands looked upon the silhouette of his future, crowned with birchwood silver woven into her braids. Katya sensed him, a being like herself from across the world and turned. She looked at him a long moment, with eyes belonging to a world since passed set in the face that would one day be the image that sprang into Matthew’s mind when he needed to summon a memory of home that would not cleave him in two. She bid him to approach and, with one gesture, changed their fates.

Later, he would find out she spoke the court French of his earliest years, but this night, there is only Katya’s outstretched hand and burning blue eyes reflecting fire and Matt’s fingers lacing into hers to spin in the dance of all the other young men and women. There is no discussion of soil and wheat, nor opportunity and affection. There is only alcohol, laughter, music, fire and spinning, his mouth full of her language, unknown but already familiar. There is only a lightening of her eyes as she enjoys herself, her head flung back in laughter as he chokes on pear horilka stronger and sweeter than any whiskey he’s ever made. Her wreath topples out of her hair, and she bursts into laughter as he snatches it up and runs, calling over his shoulder, and she hikes up her skirts and follows, hand outstretched, only to grasp onto him and run, stride long and confident as they leap together to make it over the bonfire.

Still, together, hands clasped, his right her and left and left touching the laurel wreath, the last symbol she indulges from her Varangian roots. Eye contact, a significance, a weight that will one day balance the heaviness of history. She will press his heart into the shape of hers with that weight. He will give it back in every way he can, the ballast of whatever love she’ll let him give. But for now, in the last light of day, there is only a young man and a young woman hand in hand, circling a fire under a night sky. Here, they are under a star-streaked Milky Way that gives way to a mead moon rising over the mountains. Someday, save them; that moon will be the only witness to this night when mortality leaves alive only a man, a woman, and their most human memory.

[historia-vitae-magistras]

As someone from the same part of the world (I'm Polish) your Ukraine makes so much sense. Can you tell us about what she's like with Canada? They seem like they could be so sweet together.

Thank you! and their relationship is about building and about growth. In histories so defined by Matt's loathed abilities with killing and Katya's land being the land where empires clashed, and destruction fills so much of her life, it has to be about building and growth. It has to be Matt's hands joining hers in building and rebuilding after so many others have been destroyed.

This looks like Matt boosting her onto the dacha roof and her pulling him up after her so they can lay the shingles Matt cracked from split logs.

He learns the wild mushrooms of her region, and together they spend time picking and then pickling wild mushrooms and garlic. In the woods, she touches things and says the word for it in Ukrainian, building his vocabulary.

Her counters are ancient, and Matt says fuck this and goes out hiking to find a deposit of granite so beautiful it could be mistaken for mother of pearl because literally all of the Canadian shield is covered in beautiful granite, and he sends her a photo of it like "If we can find that at the store do you want it for counters?" She sends him a thumbs up, and he takes that as enough approval to literally mine this out of the side of a hill and make Alfred pick it up, and he ships it and then installs it for her. She thinks he's insane, but goddamn, it is a beautiful counter.

She isn't very expressive in a lot of ways, and Matt sleeps separately from her a lot when she wants space, or he just really, really wants to make sure she doesn't feel like she's being pressured into anything. And if he's out sleeping above the oven or on the sofa, she will sometimes join him out there and lay down with him and kind of prod him awake until he understands something's up and even when she'll never talk about it, he'll obey her prodding and snuggle and hold her until she can sleep.

[historia-vitae-magistras]

If you insist on torturing Matt can we please have more ukrcan content to balance it out?

They're so... gender. On the one hand, Matthew had never missed the opportunity to open a door or hold an umbrella or draw out a chair for Katya in 130 years, but she throws him on his face and straps him like a fucken pro too.

Often takes them a long time to have sex because Matt puts all the power in her hands. Very much a relationship where she was already so much a part of him that Matthew was happy to be whatever she needed.

Katya has actual standards for her appearance in public, so Matt is more or less forced to put on decent clothes that aren't just "hey, this flannel doesn't have a stain on it," or get her raised eyebrow of judgment or a thorough teasing.

They both have this yearning to be a part of humanity, to participate in their communities. This has resulted in Matt being the subject of all the Babusia gossip in Katya's current street in at least 4 Ukrainian cities over the years.

He's gone to see her thinking it's going to be a chill weekend and ended up being hauled into making Vareniki or knocking over some Catherine the Great statues a billion times.

That yearning for humanity, for a family they will never really have together, manifests itself in their relationship too. In times of hardship when a large wedding was impossible, Ukrainians and Ukrainian Canadians alike considered the bread and a blessing all that was needed to wed. The prairies were conservative; Matt and Katya couldn't live in sin out there in the 19th century lmao.

Ukrainian Canadians carried the custom of the wedding bread loaf, a Korovai, to the New World with them. French Canadians have similar customs, but the food, mug, or wine will vary. When it became apparent Ukrainians were going to be a large part of Canadian culture, and Matt's feelings were permanent, he made her the loaf, apologized it wasn't made traditionally by the women in a community and asked her what she'd like to do with it.

Katya told him he was insane, kissed him blue, bribed a priest, and then knelt in the black earth under a dawn sky and made what vows creatures like them might keep.

[historia-vitae-magistras]

Silly question but I don't understand why irene would care for matt at all? He's so boring and white bread and she's Ukraine of all places?

Why wouldn't she? Here she is, with a name that means borderland. She has been coveted by every regional and global power since her inception. From the moment those Swedish pagans crossed the Baltic and paddled into her rivers and made outposts and way stations into opulence and wealth that flowed from the caliphs and khans in the east, she has been coveted. The River Kings breathed life into her and from that moment on, she was a battlefield. On foot or on horse back or on tank treads she has witnessed war. With axe and shield or sword and spear or sniper rifle, she has fought for her right to live. Her sky blazes blue over golden grain, she sows and reaps, and cities on rivers grow. She is hard and fertile, like packed earth, the great European breadbasket, with just enough give things may live in her heart and her fields. Her people were once known in some form as Varangians, "sworn people" or "oath keepers" those intermixing of Scandinavian and Slavic peoples who created her. A promise, maybe, that no matter what comes or goes, all will grow come spring. That she will live. Men squabble for territory, they fight and they die. Her soil is black with the blood of empires who lived and then died in her fields.

And then comes a boy. Because she is twice his age and he is a boy. And he needs nothing of her land. Not an inch of it because he is overflowing with his own, more than he can handle. This boy and his blood will not join the rest that drains into the soil beneath her feet. There are axe grooves in his hands, as much from felling men as trees but pretty blue eyes with a softness that should not have survived his first century. But she has heard the stories of how he was formed, and what he has done. She doesn't quite believe it. And especially she doesn't when he asks for nothing from her. He is a second son, like so many of those Swedes who made Kyvian Rus, but the only opportunities he has an eye for is what he can offer her. He is lucky, this boy, who can let the empires maneuver without much fear at home. And before long, she's planted roots in him. A dozen empires and a dozen centuries have tried to put their roots in her, to grow themselves into the land. But this time, it is her roots in him. She is the one changing and arranging their destinies. He has buried his axe or made it into a plow or otherwise left it behind him. He is black earth and peace for her. Where else can love grow better?

[historia-vitae-magistras]

Canukr 12 for the dialogue prompts

I have no idea what's going on in this fic anymore but it's written so voila. The usual siblings suffering in a trench having a conversation about love, life and what have you with background ukrcan.

Spring, 1916

Jack might have been dead, as stiff as a corpse well into rigour mortis in this cold. His toes wouldn't flex in his boots, and when he peeled back his mitts, the skin on his fingers was cracked straight through. They should have bled, but his hands were too cold. He shoved them under his armpits and shuddered into the tent's wall. If he got any closer to the anemic fire, he'd set himself alight, but there was no point in living in this kind of cold. He wished he could close his eyes and see his home's cracked, desperately thirsty surface rather than that of his own hands—dry, warm sun and blue instead of the endless grey. Or that Zee would get off duty and nick some whiskey. Either would do.

“Hey,” came Matt's low whisper, gentle but as freezing as a polar wind. “You still awake?”

“No,” Jack muttered but shifted and opened his eyes: Matt was tall and sharp and the pale green of a blade of frosted grass. He was still damp from the showers.

“Jesus, Mattie. You sick?” Jack asked him.

Matt shot him an odd look and touched his greenish cheek. “Oh, right. No. Not sick. Just woke up on the corpse pile again,”

“Fuck mate,”

“Ah, all fine. Just was looking for something, it was stupid.” He knelt to sit next to Jack on the sandbag bed, and for the first time, Jack noticed he was out of regulation even more than usual, a blue sweater over their grey army-issued undershirts poking out from under his unbuttoned coat.

“You going to sleep?"

"Nah, can't get any proper sleep when I've got snow balls.”

Matt grinned, a flash of snow blindness. “Bet I can help with that,”

He produced an earthen crock, its contents held by butcher paper held shut with twine, tore it open with his teeth and thrust it into Jack's hands, displaying it with a proud grin.

He blinked.

“It's warm,” He said dumbly. He could feel it with his own two hands, warm and still steaming. Oh, there might be a God.

“It was hot,” Matt said sorrowfully, but Jack paid him little mind. He smelled things he had half-forgotten. Onion, garlic, celery, carrots, peas, potatoes, pepper. Curry. Fucking miracle of miracles—

"Is this... curry?"

Matt grinned again. "Curried lentils, yeah."

“Soup?” He gaped. “Like actual soup? Not from a tin?”

Matt smiled. “Fresh from the cookfires of the Indian division. Aditya says you're welcome."

He dug his mess kit from deep in the pockets of his great coat and scooped some into his mouth. But it tasted as good as it smelled. Vegetal and garlicky. No meat but— Oh! Lentils. Right, some of the Indian divisions were vegetarians.

“God, that's so good,”

Matt snorted. "Is it? Good!"

"Didn't you get any?"

"I didn't have scurvy last month," Matt said. "Speak of, how's the teeth?"

"In my head," Jack said. They ached. But they were firmly in his gums, at least. "Get over here and help me eat this, you sad bastard. I'm cold just looking at you."

"I'm okay." Matt said.

"Oh, get off the cross, we need the wood." Jack rolled his eyes. "No ones going go lose the war because you only martyred yourself once today. Get over here."

Sheepishly, Matt sat, and Jack dumped some soup out for himself. He gave Matt his half in the warm redware.

"Thanks," He said. He looked oddly worn out, even for him, and Jack kicked another log onto the anemic fire.

"What got you this time?"

"Concussive blast, I think." He grimaced, one hand floating over his shoulder before he realized what he was doing and put his hand back to hold his soup.

"Do you want to go bunk with the old man? He's got a few rooms in some ponce's chateau. Warmer than out here."

Matt shook his head. "They'll be fucking."

"Who's... oh your... yeah." Jack grimaced sympathetically. "Can't blame you there. Fucken awkward just being in the same room at those two much less when they're your... whatever Bonnefoy is."

Matt hummed a particularly miserable agreement, and Jack elbowed him. "Hey, you carked it. Means you'll get another care package from Alfred, right?"

Matt snorted. "You keep more track of when those arrive than I do."

"Well yeah, where else am I going to get the good shit?"

Matt shouldered him, jostling their seat. "You just want chocolate."

"Always." He grinned and was awarded the slightest smile from Matt for his efforts and thought he might press his luck. "What are my chances of you translating some Baudelaire for me?"

Matt stirred his soup and gave a flat, dead stare. Jack laughed, uncomfortable.

"Take that as a no."

"Not a no. Just... Not today."

He gave Matt a wry grin. He’d pushed his luck, and he knew it. He gave Matt a gentle elbow and took up some more soup. He was grateful. Extra calories were a small thing in the grand scheme. However, Matt, the blessed bloodhound he sometimes was, could sniff out and scavenge spare calories at a thousand paces. The smell of soup and broth was so… normal compared to damp wool, a soggy tent, and French soil. Wet, horrible, cold French soil. He kicked at the duckboards and the hard-packed earth beneath his feet.

“Thanks for this, by the way.” He said.

Matt glanced up. “Of course. You looked like you needed a hot meal and rack time as badly as I do.”

“… About that rack time.” He grimaced, remembering the envelope in his pocket with all the odd markings Zee had told him to pass on when he saw Matt. “It’s encrypted, so it's probably urgent.”

“No.” Matt lifted one finger. “Not until I’ve eaten. This is going in me, I’m going to pretend I didn’t just crawl my way out of a corpse pile for a bit and then Dad can ruin my day.”

Jack snorted. “Look at you, not coming like a labrador just because Dad called.”

“Ah, piss off you.” Matt gave him a gentle whack. He was the best of their father, sometimes. They ate in companionable silence for a long while, silent except for the fire. Matt finished and tossed himself on the berth Zee commandeered when she was so sick of the posh limey nurses she worked with that even the comfortable billets they had weren’t worth the fucken poms and gestured for it.

“All right, I’m human, give it up.”

“Ah, bloody hell, where’d I stick it.” He went patting himself down.

“Half of me doesn’t want you to find it.” Matt shook his head. “Try your cartridge pocket. You’re always sticking things in there and forgetting.”

“Am not,” Jack said, putting his hand there anyways. Fuck, Matt was right. “All right, never mind. Am so.”

Matt shook his head, hand out. “Give it up,”

“Arsehole,”

“Sieve for brains.” He got a shoulder squeeze as he handed over the dirty envelope. Matt barely had it in his hand before going white. This was somewhat disturbing, considering he was practically green even in the firelight, and his knees collapsed beneath him as he sprawled onto the bed again.

“Matt? What... is it that bad? Why did they have to send it in code like that?" It was covered in circles, stabbed through, or otherwise backward-written.

“It’s not code…” He fumbled for his pocket knife and opened it carefully. “That’s cyrillic.”

“Cyrillic? What, like the Russian stuff?”

“Ukrainian!” Matt blurt out. He’d lit up from the inside out, colour coming into his face for the first time in weeks. He kissed the envelope.“It’s from Katia.”

“What, that scary blonde lady with the braid things?” He gestured to his head, and Matt sighed, lovelorn. Actually lovelorn. Christ was a kookaburra. The Russians occasionally tossed boats on his front doorstep whenever Ivan felt he didn’t get enough attention from Dad. He had occasionally glanced at her on other occasions, dressed well and fierce looking even when she laughed.

“Most beautiful, terrifying woman on planet earth.” He sounded instantly drunk—bloody hell. Jack had never known him to sound like that. He watched Matt clutch it to his chest like a father when he was being a mad and sentimental old bird and sigh.

“Mate.” Jack watched with amused befuddlement and more than a bit of concern. Creatures have behaviour patterns. The koalas had diets of almost nothing but eucalyptus, were riddled with chlamydia and clung to their mothers' past reason. Matt, too, mostly put away narcotics, was riddled with venereal disease and hadn’t disobeyed their father in a solid decade. Wombats mated in spring between September and December, shat in cubes and lived in their mother’s pouch. Matt mated every leave, probably had the only solid shits in the entire British army and did what their father said. It was the way of the world. He scavenged food, slept poorly, and murdered many. And now he was grinning as his eyes passed over the letter. As much as he tried, Jack couldn't help but worry.

“Mate,” He said again, dropping onto his berth and leaning over, squinting to catch a glimpse as if he’d understand even if he could see the letters. Matt looked like someone had cracked him over the head with a trench shovel again. “What does it say?”

He grinned, holding it to his chest. “It’s from Katia.”

“Yeah, you mentioned that.” He said, brows raised, bemused. Still concerned. “But what does it actually say?”

“Haven’t read it yet.” He said. “I’m just… she wrote me…”

“Why would she write you? Isn’t the eastern front in collapse?”

“Yes,” He said. “The Russians are getting trampled over there and she still wrote.”

Jack gawped. The words were grim against his brother’s delighted expression. “Okay. So why is she writing to you?"

“Might’ve… sort’ve married her.” He mumbled.

“You did what?” Jack stared. “Yoi’ve always been a few roos short of a mob but– you did what?”

“It’s not official. Bread, salt, and sex, mostly. I just–” He took a breath, but that dopey look hadn't left. Jack watched as he kissed the envelope and suddenly felt like doing what he did when their father shagged the frog across some canvas. Fleeing the country.

“Does Dad know?” And if it was possible, Matt’s grin widened.

“Old man hates Ivan so he loves her.”

“You’re telling me that our father, who art an arsehole, hallowed be thy church of him, let you go and– how did you pull that off?”

“I’m older than you,” He said, looking smug, like that explained anything.

“What has– never mind. What does it say?”

“She has these eyes.” He said dreamily.

“Reckon she does,” Jack snorted. “Most people do.”

“Shush,” Matt said, but there was no fire. “They’re alive. They burn. It’s like when the sun comes out.”

“Do you have brain damage? Are you ill?” Jack reached over, putting his hand on Matt’s forehead.

Matt tossed his hand off. “Paws off.”

“I’m serious.” Jack said, seriously scanning him now. “What’s the matter with you?”

“Can’t I be happy without something being wrong?”

“Not this happy!”

“I’m fine. Just, hush a damn minute and let me read. If it isn’t sexy, I’ll translate some of it.”

“Oohohoho now you’re talking. Story time afterall.”

They sat there for a long while, in a strange happiness, the anemic fire higher. Both were relaxed, concern absent from Jack as Matt ripped through the letter. Jack busied himself with stupid little things, straightening their few belongings, pouring each a bit of what whiskey was left from Uncle Alasdair’s last trip back home. He nearly dropped the bottle when Matt yelped.

“What? What’s wrong?”

“Which one of you fuckers sent her a photo of me?” He broke into laughter. “With my hair short? Oh my god.”

“That’s a Kiwibird maneuver if I’ve ever heard one.”

“Shitheads, the lot of you.” He was still laughing, fist against the bottom of his ribs. “Jesus Christ.”

“Why, what’d she say?”

“Sit down, its story time.” Matt shook his head, incredulous and overjoyed.

“Dear…” His brother squinted, frowning. “I don’t actually know what that word means. It’s got something to do with spooky and tree and the ending is a diminunitive. Anyway.”

He started again, and Jack listened as he read out loud.

Dear 'word I can’t translate',

We have brought the harvest in. Most of the men are gone, and it was not as easy as it may have been. However, the wheat fields were yellow under the bluest skies this year. You might not recognize this village, even with your head as complete with me as it is with hundreds of thousands of mine now yours. We planted winter wheat, which the British passed on via the Red Cross. To my surprise, I found it was Canadian Soft Red winter wheat. It was a pleasant surprise, I think. You might also thank your sister for that as well.

Regardless, children and seedlings grow, and wheat and men are reaped. On and on it continues. However, with this wheat, a photo and letter were passed onto me. You can imagine my surprise to see you looking so… different. You changed your hair. I like it well enough; you may tell your sister she did a fine job. I do, however, expect it to be of its preferable length when I see you again. I also expect you to remember what I asked of you last we spoke. Remain yourself, Matthew. Also, I would ask you to inform your father that I expect you to be in one piece come the end of this war. He may recall in short order how it was in Miklagarðr.

May the winter be kind,

Katia

Jack raised a sarcastic brow. “She’s romantic.”

“Isn’t she?” Matt said, for once not hearing any of the ironies. “She’s so beautiful with words.”

“Must be prettier in Ukrainian, eh?” He said. Matt sighed and ran a hand through the short curls that made him look like Alfred.

“I wish I hadn’t let them cut it.”

“It’s not like you had a choice," Jack said. His was shorter than usual, and he’d never let it grow long. The thought, 'Even with hundreds of mine now yours,' came unbidden into his mind.

“Do you love her?” He blurted. “Is it love when its like that?”

"Yes," Matt said instantly. He constantly pondered and always considered things before he said them. But not this.

“Is it easier than humans?” Jack tried not to let the green-eyed Irishman he had let himself go arse over heart for flood into his mind. He had to clench his fists.

“Yes,” Matt said. “In a lot of ways. There’s always more time for us. Even if we die, we’ll live. But its no less nerve wracking. I haven’t had a letter from her since the war started. I’m sure Zee had to redirect some serious funding to deliver one and get this back. Remind me to get her something, would you?”

“Fork over that fancy yank soap next time you get a packet from Alfred, and I’m sure she’ll settle.” Jack said because he could easily say that while his thoughts tumbled through his mind. Tossing Will a Yorkshire pudding as he ducked a splatter of tea, laughing when they’d been camped under the pyramids. Blood. A heart-shaped disk he’d hacked out of a bit of scrap iron and slid into Will’s pocket. Screaming. Will’s hand in his as they cuddled too close in their funk hole. Aunt Brighid in black as he’d shovelled the soil over an ancient family plot in an ancient churchyard on a rainy spring morning with Australian autumn in his bones.

His fist clenched, nails puncturing his palm.

“Jack.” Matt was suddenly very close, gently squeezing Jack’s knee. “Hey. I’m sorry.”

His eyes sprang open. He hadn’t even realized he’d closed them.

“It’s fine.”

“Jack.”

“I said its fine!” He snapped. “I’m glad you can fuck our own–”

Matt squeezed his knee again, unflinching and looking like that letter had restored him to his whole self.

“We have a bit of leave soon. Why don’t we order and take a whole crop of snowdrops to Will’s grave? Dad doesn’t need to know." As soon as his anger was there, it was forgotten. The bastard was so fucking reasonable sometimes.

“Yeah.” Jack released his fist and sagged, flopping over onto his berth. “Yeah that sounds nice. Be nice to go up there when I don’t want to shoot Dad for once.”

“There you go.” Another tender pat on his knee as Matt pulled a blanket over him, but Jack shoved his face into the pillow.

“Mattie?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m glad she wrote to you. You deserve it.”

[historia-vitae-magistras]

On at least one occasion, Matt has woken up, wandered into the kitchen like the ghost of a Victorian child, flicked on the lights and had a minor crisis. He's picking everything up and squinting at it because he can't read anything. How many rips did he take off the bong he can't remember getting out last night? Then he finally wakes up enough to realize he's not brain-damaged or baked, it's just all in Ukrainian and Polish because Katya did the shopping last. And he can read it.

[historia-vitae-magistras]

sorry for this dumb horny question but who (or what? because i won't judge) is matthew's best fuck?

OH That's a very interesting question. When he and Jan were good they were good. That sex was mind-blowing. Matt sucks cock like he was born to do it (tbh probably the trait Francis is most proud of when he hears about it third hand) and Jan was a happy, happy man for a very long time. Jan was also very good at fucking Matt so hard he had enough serotonin or dopamine for months. Man's prostate got worked over in a kind of way Matt could walk straight all weekend.

He gave Maria a pretty good time. She fucks him for the bit in the 90s because someone said he should count as Latin American just to spite Alfred and his goddamn economic wheeling and dealing to make them the worlds weirdest threesome . (No seriously its been four times someone told me I count as Latin American just to say fuck off to the Americans in a group and like.... on a technicality I fucking guess but its a very strange mind screw.) Don't ask me if it was memorable because his entire body was on capsicum related fire or because he the kind of sunburnt so painful it starts to feel a bit like nutting or if they actually clicked but it'd been awhile since either of them had fucked so it just happened.

Katya is probably the most intense. There's almost something religious about it, his bare back in black earth, her riding with her head thrown back and her body soft against him, fingers interlaced with earth and sky and sun all around them. They fuck soft, they fuck hard, they fuck against trees and in fields and on the floor and on the counter and on the table and the sofa. They often go so long without each other that when they do finally get to it, it's like dumping petrol on a fire they're going up in the horniest flames. He fucks her, she fucks him, it doesn't quite matter for those two because no matter where in the world she is, she's in him, a part of him. Sometimes I think that for nations, they fuck like the gods did at the dawn of the world. Before onion domes and Orthodoxy or cathedrals and Catholicism, the trees were the temples and blood, earth and lovemaking was the language of the gods. Sometimes they fuck and the garden will grow. Somethings they fuck and the ice will ease up. Sometimes they fuck and the old world is new and the new world is old. People use the phrase 'I saw god' for when someone comes so hard their world view is changed. For the best times, for the very best times between Matt and Katya, god can stay in his distant heaven because all he'll see is her.

[historia-vitae-magistras]

Baby Katya 🤝 Baby Matt

Getting humped into existence by weirdos who needed to haul boats over rocks to get their pelts to the places with cash.

[historia-vitae-magistras]

Well there's the answer for why Katia prefers Matt at long last lmao.

Genuinely I really do think that's a part of it. If there's one benefit to how structured his place in the world is, always some sort of deputy to his brother or his father, I think its how in he's fine with some things that less secure people wouldn't be. Like his sense of masculinity might make him weird about what colours he wears and what he does with his hair but behind closed doors? There's absolutely no problem with being a service switch, and fucking his partners they way they want to be fucked.

Like with Jan, he rode into the Netherlands as an extension of Alfrd and Arthur's empires. Liberator rather than conqueror but armed and in charge regardless. There was a pretty serious concern among Dutch men with the presence of the Canadians. And there was some serious tension when Canada forced the Netherlands to the table over Indonesia. As a result, I think he mostly bottomed with Jan just to help balance their dynamic. Whereas Jan probably was more of a switch with Kiku when they were on equal terms.

With Katya, he can't be what he was too Jan in '45 or even too Emma in 1918. He's not armed, he's not a liberator, even as a major part of a larger coalition. They met at peace. So what they have has to be based on peace time. Not reciprocated love expressed over domination and the softening of power differences like Nedcan, but this sense of "whats mine is yours." All he can give her is an open door. A sense that he, his heart, his home are hers, whenever she may want them.

With Jan, he tried very hard to to separate this sense of "You owe me your life, not your heart." Especially when Jan is so slow to cease being an empire and sometimes treats him like an inferior in the global game for his loyalty to Arthur and Alfred. With Katya, no one owes. If anything, Matt with his luck in having Alfred for a neighbor, owes her his heart for what she gave him. She's in him, whether they like it or not. She was a love that pressed his heart into the shape of hers. There's a flexibility that comes when its a miracle a culture survived. What she wants, he'll give her, because he's just so happy they both exist to share that. Eating her out like he's trying to make Theotokos herself see god is just one expression of that.

[historia-vitae-magistras]

can you please explain the meme? I think I understood the joke but an explanation would be nice. Thank you! 🤭

Okay so full disclosure this one is a bit of a reach but butterfly effect and all that. This is the very brief and simplified version but:

In the 6th century, Scandinavian society broke down completely. There is ice core evidence from Canada, Greenland and Antarctica that show the effect of two volcanic eruptions in the 530s that dropped global temperatures and created the conditions that bear a remarkable similarity to themes in the Finnish Kalevala as well as the opening of Ragnarok the later sagas would term the Fimbulvetr. It caused famines and other social disruptions that may have killed up to a third or even half of the Scandinavian population and likely lead directly to what is termed "hall culture" based around the long houses and halls of a martial sociétal elite. As we see in Beowulf and other stories of the era.

This in turn contributed to a reorganization of society that would result in the warrior ethos and economic conditions that would create the so called Viking Age kicking off about 200 years after the eruptions in the 750s.

This era would see the Norse turn east into the Baltic with mostly Swedes turning into river-based traders, raiders and mercenaries and see the rise of the Kyivian Rus, a mixture of Slavic and Nordic peoples from which most of the eastern slavic states would find their start. Most notably, Ukraine.

In the west, the creation of Normandy after Danish incursions into Frankia, today's France, were warded off with bribery of land on the channel coast of northern France. Which in turn would largely fuel both French and British imperialism after 1066 and the Norman invasion, as well as heavily contributing to the settler colonies of New France, eventually resulting in Canada.

[historia-vitae-magistras]

Concept: There's only one bed but it's the prairies in 1895 and Matthew has been treating Katya with an insane amount of respect not expecting anything while clearly crushing on her. And it's their first night in a real bed in a while. Matt's gonna get his shit rocked. That man's balls are going to be singing 🎵Hej Sokoły🎵 by dawn.

[historia-vitae-magistras]

Thoughts on what Katya's neighbors think of Canada? I'm Polish but I had no idea how many Ukrainians there were in Canada until recently.

Oh, I don't think her neighbors really do think about Matt? He was a very brief slice of her life in the 1890s and kind of pops into their sphere randomly here and there. It's Alfred who's got all the resources she needs and who Feliks and Tolys are bound up with in the great orgy of post-war and post-wall Europe and the E.U. The embassies Matt built her were nice and I feel like they've stumbled across him when he and Katya are working on her home or a dacha, it's always nice to have an extra pair of hands around sometimes. With that in mind it feels like its difficult to overstate how little Canada mattered to Ukrainian politics when compared to how much Ukraine has shaped Canada, considering how multiculturalism was in many ways spearheaded by Ukrainians and the effect that had.

He's something of a vague shadow at the end of the world. Like so many things in a land named Okraine or "borderland" or "place in between," he's an entity half lost beyond the horizon. He's a ghost that like most things that are only real because love makes them so, only exists to haunt her with what might be called happy memories.

[historia-vitae-magistras]

what does Katya thinks of Matt? She seems a little cold so far :(

Oh, funny you should ask. Most Ukrainians aren't really aware of Canada's Ukrainians 😂. It's been three, four, five times I've mentioned it to people born or otherwise from Ukraine and they're very surprised. But then you kind of look through history, literature and folk culture and we Canucks pop up more than you'd think? There are references to Calgary in poetry anthologies I've seen going back to the 60s, dozens of sources from Canadian libraries, dozens of Ukrainian language books from Canadians academic publishers. He's not important enough change the course of her history the way most other countries in her life are, but he's present.

The differences between them are large, Matthew had been far luckier in his position in the world. So whatever affection she has for him has to be a very human thing that's always going to place him further down in her priorities than she is in his.

I think she does love him in her own way. He's always so safe feeling, he's always seen her as she is. There's this part of her, a small but very vulnerable part, a piece that all the years hasn't been able to harden that she can trust him with. She left her fingerprints on his personality. He loved her as she was yesterday, he loves her as she is now, he'll love her as however she'll be tomorrow. She doesn't quite rely on it, she thinks he's a little insane but she's grateful for it. He'll be satisfied with whatever title she needs to give him and she loves him for it. He's trusted. Friend, partner, lover, spouse. Whatever she needs, he'll be because that comes second to the knowledge he is trusted. That's the more important thing she can think, and she does.

The world has been exceptionally cruel to her, and what she thinks of Matt at the end of the day is that he is young, and he is soft, and she thinks the world of that. Because it is luck, but it's also a choice he's been able to make. His ability to be soft matches her ability to be strong and sometimes she's so thankful there is any softness left in the world, much less in him and she falls in love all over again.