Early 1780 - A dispatch arrived. It contained the names of all Continental officers and soldiers returned in an exchange a month prior, as well as those British and Hessian. At the bottom of the page were those deserters of the crown who had been captured, and the resulting punishments meted out. Halfway through that secondary list was a familiar former Lieutenant - punishment, hanging.
✰ ☆ ★ — That’s the problem with befriending mortal men. They were vastly interesting - they grew so fast compared to Daniel’s kind. He could see as they grew and changed, could actively watch as starry eyed children became men of great valor, women of grand courage, or any number of wonderous possibilities, all of them making up who he, himself would grow to be over a much, much longer period of time.
The problem here - Theodore was… not one of his own. He knew that now. He had felt himself in years prior upon the execution of various traitors to the crown. Nathan Hale, Isaac Hayne, John McClelland, they had a particular pain that accompanied their deaths. Nothing that can be described in the terms of what a human might feel - just the same as when in the presence of another Representative, there is an alien sensation that Daniel knew. Just a generic pain that accompanied the death of a citizen, a supporter, one who believes in his existence and will fight til their death to protect them.
But this one - those damn letters. Theodore Groves, Lieutenant of the British Navy. Daniel did not feel that same pain with his loss. Daniel was no longer a part of the British Army, the British Empire. He knew in the back of his mind that he no longer belonged to George Sinclair in anything but name, and with it left from him the ability to find, to sense, to feel Theodore’s presence within his people.
That loyalist friend of his, his cherished and dearest friend of any he had ever known, the pain associated with learning of his death, that was purely human. For the longest time, all he could do was stare at the words, that one name. Any other in his vision were blurred. He hardly noticed that the blurring was not from the grief necessarily, but from the saline of tears threatening to fall upon the parchment. With shaky breath, he closed his eyes hard before turning away from his desk, leaning on the window and stared instead over the yard before him. Perhaps he had been in the wrong this entire time. Seeking reconciliation and forgiveness from the monarchy would do nothing but hurt him more, hurt his people.
The people who were no longer property of the British Crown.
Then and there, he knew he had no choice, none that would be better for himself of his people. His only option to cease this madness they call a war would be to devote himself to it, personally denounce the hold the monarchy had over him, and proceed to accept that he would be on his own. While mortals age and grow quickly, and these immortal beings they call Nations, Representatives, Curators or any other term one could think of, while it took them many decades to grow even a little bit, sometimes it happened in the blink of an eye.
Daniel was going to wear a coat of blue and white the next time he stepped foot onto a battlefield.
