The States

get up and change the light

civil war era

Daniel can be intense. He's charming and he speaks well and he practically drips passion.

And, most importantly, he hates being told what to do.

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"It's the principal of the matter," Daniel tells his siblings.

David frowns. "But secession? Daniel-"

Daniel cuts him off. "I won't let them tell me what I can and can't do!"

David doesn't respond, just keeps that same pensive look on his face.

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If his hands shake when he writes the notice of secession, Daniel ignores it.

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Will punches him and they fight until Scott grabs Will and shoves him towards Brooke, and Scarlett and David join Daniel.

Scarlett's hands are balled into fists, and it doesn't matter if she's in a hoop skirt and dress, she's willing to fight them all, right then and there.

It still hurts when Del looks him in the eyes and tells him to get out.

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It wasn't supposed to be like this. Drew and Josh and Flora weren't supposed to follow, bound to his mistakes by the will of the people.

Jackson isn't supposed to happen.

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If Daniel had stopped to think about the formation of a new nation, he would have assumed that he would take that role. Personifications are flexible, after all. They don't always remain what they started as. America himself began as a single settlement, after all.

But he hadn't even thought about how they were forming a new nation, of the possibility another personification would be formed.

Drew, Josh, and Flora are all looking between him and the brand new nation standing before them. Daniel is the oldest, so they look at him.

Daniel feels a twist of wrongness in his stomach. When personifications were formed, they were always relatively young, always in those white nightgowns.

The Confederacy is the same age as the once-states that stand in front of him. He's dressed in likely stolen trousers and a loose shirt. He looks unsettlingly like Alfred. The hair is darker, less wheat-gold and more a dusty blonde with tints of red. The eyes are different too, a darker grey-blue like the Atlantic instead of bright cerulean. The jaw is the same, and so are the mouth and nose. Alfred, without the Pacific, without the shining wheatfields of the Great Plains.

The Confederacy is looking them over assessingly. Flora is still in a way that says this is ingrained into her mind, head slightly tilted down and shoulders pulled in, everything to make her seem smaller.

Something flickers in the Confederacy's eyes when he looks at Drew before he turns away.

The Confederacy holds his hand out to Daniel.

Daniel takes it, and the Confederacy smiles before he shakes his hand.

"The Confederate States of America," Here he pauses, before finally: "You can call me Jackson."

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There are state houses scattered across the country, that way Alfred could raise territories close to their own borders. Some of them now belong to the state where the house is built by de facto, but others are just empty.