[Archive] Expedition of the Thousand [N. & S. Ita]

[pklove]

1860

The destination was to be the island of Sicily, on the opposite end of the peninsula from their current stand point. Landing in new places was always a bit nerve wracking, even before anything had even happened. Sometimes, the wait was really the worst. There had been talk by numerous leaders of a dream that in the end would unify the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies with the northern half of the country. At first, the idea had been simply that; a dream.

Over the course of his life, Feliciano had learned that hard way that some dreams were meant to never be anything more than thoughts inside the heads of their owners. He himself was full of many, as were his people. They were tricky things, those dreams. Sometimes if they were really acted upon, especially the dreams of nations, they could crash and burn in an instant and cause more pain than the situation at hand in the first place.

Standing in front of him were two grand steamships, Il Piemonte and Il Lombardo. They were huge and beautiful, clearly capable of carrying thousands of people. It was always a bit intimidating being around such beauty, but it was something that Feliciano always found time to appreciate no matter what the situation at hand. When surrounded by the busyness of the boarding the two steamships in Quarto, it wasn't too much difficult to distract himself from the task that was awaiting them once the ships landed on the shores of Sicily. The hustle and bustle of the people who had volunteered to go on the journey was enough to keep his mind off things. So many people going on board, split up between the two ships, and they all wanted to be there. Feliciano really found it amazing.

Unfortunately, once actually on the water, it wasn't as easy for him to push away any frightening thoughts of doubt inside him. Everyone was busy doing their own thing, and he found himself having a lot of free time to himself to do nothing but sit and think with the waves splashing against the ship as if it were some kind of background music.

The two ships only had to make two rest stops along the way, and they were brief. Yes, they were useful for restocking and refueling the ships, but it was also useful on his own peace of mind. With the last rest stop at Porto Santo Stefano, everyone on board knew that they would be at their destination soon enough.

And soon enough, they were informed that the two ships were approaching Marsala, and it would only be a matter of time before they were there. This time, it wasn't only Feliciano that was visibly effected, everyone else was going through an interestingly wide array of emotions around him.

Feliciano could only listen to the idle chattering of the people of the room he was in as he was lost in his own thoughts again. He was always rather optimistic, and right now was no different. With everything taken into consideration, there was no way that this could end badly for either him or his brother. The dream of his people was completely possible. On their side was a famous leader, Giuseppe Garibaldi, advocating this dream with a plan to make it work. They had even managed to get a few British ships to assist them in the harbor. Not only this, but nearly all the people on the two ships were volunteers full of hope for their cause. With that much backing, it brought a smile to Feliciano's face and a reassurance that his nervousness was just silly.

In reality it hours before Il Piemonte and Il Lombardo had the shore of Marsala in their sights, but to Feliciano it seemed like a matter of moments. All the things he had been thinking about throughtout the duration of the trip came back to him in a flash once more. Before he knew it, the shore was there and he was instructed to stay on board and direct off some of the passengers. So they were here finally...

For something that had him both excited and nervous, things seemed to be going fine so far. The passengers on board were slowly dwindling in numbers, and nothing had gone wrong. From the ship, Feliciano looked out at the landscape, a nice feeling in his stomach that this was starting off on the right foot.

[South Italy]

A NEW nation cannot be made solely by the skill of a
great statesman playing on the mutual jealousies of
Foreign Powers. The making of nations requires the
self-sacrifice of thousands of obscure men and women
who care more for the idea of their country than for
their own comfort or interest, their own lives or the
lives of those whom they love.
- Manzoni, ' Marzo, 1821'

May 1860

Lovino walked up and down the small meeting room biting his lip, and thinking. He wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but before he had started his aimless walk, the room had been full of people discussing what was happening in his younger brother’s lands just a bit north of his own.

The Grand Duchy of Tuscany as well as the Duchies of Modena and Parma and the Romagna to Piedmont, they had heard about all of them, had been informed about their annexation not even two month ago, but they hadn’t cared about it. What did it concern them what was happening further in the north? At that time they hadn’t expected to get information’s about a small fleet coming down their way.

He knew from their informants that it wasn’t a big army that came their way, but he was still worried. The Two Sicilies were strong and had more than enough citizens that were capable of fighting for them, but he had also heard that their leader was Giuseppe Garibaldi, someone who he had heard of before and on top of that it seemed like he had gotten help from that British bastard as well.

Lovino didn’t know why England would help his brother; what would he gain by doing this? He was both curious and worried about what kind of agreement the North Italian had made with the Englishman.

They had gotten informations that Garibaldi and his troops were on their way to Marsala, Sicily and going by their current course it seemed to the truth. They must have heard of the uprisings not even a full month ago and now they probably wanted to take advantage of it, especially since there were still many of his people that were angry with his current leader. But Lovino wasn’t going to surrender without his fight after all, he had the larger and stronger army, and after being ruled by others for so long he wasn’t going to just give up on his independence – especially if it meant giving up to his YOUNGER brother.

He was still walking; thinking about what would be the right and best thing to do in this situation. He was currently in Naples, but he guessed that he could make it to Sicily in time if he wanted to. There were also Soldiers stationed everywhere in Sicily – a reminder, that the revolts on the island really hadn’t been that long ago and that whatever would happen he should not forget that some people might be angry enough with his government that they would switch sides.

There were just too many things he had to think of that could affect the things that would happen once the troops landed on the Island.

He was interrupted in his thinking when there was a knock on the door. He hated to be interrupted when there where important decisions to be made and his people knew that, so It could only be something important.

“Yes?” one could hear by the tone of his voice that he wasn’t happy about this interruption but he was willing to listen to whatever it was the person at the other side of the door had to say.

Just a second after he had said that the door opened and a young servant walked into the room.

“Signor Vargas, his highness king Francis II wants to speak to you.” The servant only waited until Lovino had nodded before he vanished again. The South Italian had a good idea what his king wanted from him – while he himself still wasn’t sure what to do, his king must have already made a decision that he wanted his country to hear.

He left the meeting room with a sigh and made his way to his king’s chambers – they usually met in private when they had to discuss something important, and since he had been in the meeting room before there weren’t many other places where he could find the other man.

Lovino knocked on the large wooden door and entered just a moment after. After a quick look around, he found his king sitting in an armchair in one of the corners of the room, holding a glass with a red liquid – wine, he guessed – in his hand.

“You wanted to speak to me?” the South Italian asked and walked further into the room. While he walked closer, Francis looked up from his glass of wine and nodded. “Yes, I have important matters to discuss with you. Please take a seat”

Lovino did as he was told and sat down opposite from his king.

“As you have already heard, we discovered a conspiracy in Sicily. The plotters were really talkative once we punished them for their betrayal of the kingdom. You have probably heard that Sardinia was sending troops under Garibaldi to attack Sicily, and I want you to go down there and get rid of them before they set foot on our land.”

Lovino had thought about this himself, but he hadn’t been sure. Now that Francis wanted him to go there wasn’t much he could do against it especially, since he hadn’t decided which action would be for the best. Maybe it would be the best if he went there himself and if they got rid of the problem before it really started?

He did not want a war to break out. He knew many of his people were unhappy with their current king and he ruled over the Two Sicilies, but he wouldn’t accept to be ruled by someone else again. Yes, it probably would be for the best to attack before they even landed and had the chance to take part of his lands.

“I’ll do as you wish my king. When do you want me to leave?” Lovino listened to what Francis had planned and when he wanted his troops to leave before he left the room to go and prepare for his journey to Marsala.

---

Their journey had taken far longer than they had planned and when they came closer to the small harbor town, they could already see the silhouettes of several large warships in the harbor.

They had spent too much time in a neighboring town to prepare several ships on their own, planning to attack them by sea while the remaining troops would be positioned at the harbor, keeping Garibaldi and his troops from landing.

Now it seemed like their plans were all in vain and the doubted that the ships they could see were only fishing ships or from the merchants that sometimes visited Marsala. Now their only hope was that they wouldn’t be noticed before they reached the town and that their ships would arrive soon, so that they could take them by surprise.

When they had reached the town they slip up, deciding that it would be better to get to the harbor in smaller groups so, that they wouldn’t attract too much unwanted attention. Though by the masses of people that had gathered near the harbor it seemed almost impossible to get noticed.

To Lovino it looked like their enemy’s troops were still disembarking, too busy to notice the soldiers closing in on them.

He didn’t want any of the civilians to get involved in the fight, but they offered them a perfect cover to get as close as possible. He only hoped that their ships would also arrive soon.

Lovino gave his men a sign to prepare for the attack.

---

I’m really sorry this post took me so long. I’m still not feeling all that well and I’m sorry if any parts of this post don’t make any sense… guess I’ll come back and edit it later (I should at least proofread it again orz). I won’t change anything important and just get rid of some of the mistakes here and there~
And I’m sorry, but I think I have to let you write about the attack. The post got already really long and I felt like it would become too much if I had added it to my post.

I really hope it’s not too bad and that you can work with it ><
Tell me if you want me to change anything.

Sorry again for taking so long…

[pklove]

Things had appeared to be going decently as the minutes went by. Feliciano thanked England in his head for all their help. It sure seemed as if the help they were offered was making a great deal of difference. There were no opposing forces in sight. His leader was quite glad about this, given the weapons that the northern Italian forces had carried along with them.

Feliciano was instructed to make sure that everything was going as planned on the other ship, the Lombardo. Not wanting to go against any orders, he squeezed his way past some of the other people trying to get onto dry land themselves. When he bumped into people he would give them silly, frantic apologies to help ease the disgruntled looks he got in return. It was a nice feeling to have two feet on solid land again. Really, he wished that he could just stay on land rather than board yet another ship. All this time at sea was really tiring!

It wasn't as hard to navigate the crowd on the ground, but he was still thankful that this gave him a bit more time to look around. One look at their little army of Italian volunteers could have told anyone that there would probably be some difficulties if the two sides had to engage in battle. Since there were people of all steps of life and of both genders offering their assistance to Garibaldi and the other humans in charge, many were not trained in the ways of the army. Though Feliciano was grateful for everyone's kindness and bravery to help and was sure that everything would end up alright in the end, this fact was a little rattling if he thought about all the details too hard. Most of the weapons that people had were outdated, rusty rifles. Even trained men of the army might have some difficulty with those, he figured. Not that Feliciano himself was ever particularly fond of weaponry such as rifles...

Since the two ships were not all that far apart in the first place, it didn't take Feliciano long to cross the distance between them. Well, there went getting to feel the ground! If he thought squeezing through people was bad while getting off the Piemonte was bad, it was nothing to going the opposite way to get on board the Lombardo. Passengers didn't take kindly to the boy trying to go the wrong way up when literally everyone else was migrating in the opposite direction. Luckily, it looked like the flow of passengers getting off the Lombardo was far less than that of the other ship. It didn't take long once on board himself to spot someone who was in charge of making sure everyone was leaving the ship.

Feliciano made his way over to the taller man. 'This is going to be easy!' he thought to himself. "Excuse me, sir!" He made sure to give the man a small smile once he had his attention. "I was wondering if there were still a lot of people on board." With this, he looked around a bit to make his own observations. "It doesn't look like it, right?" By the time he was done looking around for himself, he was already getting his answer. "Yes, it will probably be a few more minutes until the ship is empty." This wasn't far off from what Feliciano himself had been expecting based on his observations. The other male continued on, "You might want to get off as well. You don't want to be left on board alone."

This man was right, Feliciano realized. The last thing he wanted at the moment was to be stuck on board a ship for a long period of time. That surely would lead to a scolding later on too if he went missing. "Thank you, sir!" he chimed back before turning around the way he had come to board the ship. The flow of people coming off wasn't much anymore, so it wasn't hard at all this time. He was pretty proud of himself for finishing that task so easily without any silly blunders along the way. Hopefully everyone was still waiting for him aboard the other ship and hadn't moved.

Making his way back towards where people were still getting off the Piemonte, Feliciano noticed that the people he was looking for had indeed moved, but now they were in a spot on dry land. Inwardly, Feliciano was very glad for the fact that he didn't have to board another ship again. he made his way over, eager to tell the news that the other ship was nearly done. Actually, by the time he had made his way back over to the main group, the Lombardo was free of soldiers. Still, things were going rather smoothly. Or so he thought.

A sudden mixture of noises caught everyone in the area's attention. The air was suddenly filled with much different noises than before, and the air was filled with apprehension and fear. He hadn't been expecting yells, and noises of struggle. It was clear what was happening, but why so suddenly? Why when everything had been going so according to plan?

Feliciano's own fears that had drifted away at sea came back to him in a rush. It was clear what was going on -- they were under attack. No one was sure how though. The idea baffled him, there had been no one around them to call an attack! Shouting nearby from Garibaldi brought his thoughts back to the reality of the situation at hand. Though he himself was the embodiment of a nation, he still had to follow orders like other people. "What are we going to do now, sir?" He tried to keep the nervousness from being shown through his voice, but it still shook. Judging by the look he received, it wasn't going to be a peaceful answer. They were to defend themselves.

It was too early on in the fighting, but what they had failed to notice was what the opposing side was moving towards. It was the ships.

---

<sub>Ahh no, sorry Romano! I guess it is my turn to apologize! So our apologies cancel each other out by my rules and we are all good. I am sorry if I stopped at a really weird part, I can go on if you wish, I just got the ball rolling and started off a little. I didn't want to go too far ahead and make it feel like I was controlling your side or anything. So if you need me to add something or get rid of it just tell me and I will be happy to do it.

So yes, feel free to tell me!
And I am really sorry for the wait.</sub>