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For years, I had borne on my shoulders the weight of raising a nation. For years, I had fought for my land. For years, I had striven to keep my people happy.
A grueling job it was, indeed. Many wars had marred my soil and claimed lives. I had seen my nation rise and struggle, struggle to rise.
I would never know what it was to be human...
Nor to fight for my nation, and die trying.
Nor to fight for my nation, and live to tell the tale.
Nor to find true love, and to kindle its fire until I grew old and passed on.
There were many experiences a nation would never have.
I had seen my brothers shove their way to nationhood; I had seen them fervently engaged in battle.
I had helped them in their times of hardship, lifted them onto their feet, urged them to stand.
I had also fought against them.
Such was the life of a nation, and such was the internal turmoil that raged inside me.
The ones I cared for, the ones I called my family... In the end, they were all I had. All of the others would fade into history, with only the ghost of a memory keeping their spirit alive.
And even I had found love once.
I would never know if he loved me back. He told me, over and over again. He repeated it many times to me, to my face, whispering into my ear, shouting it into the vast mountains of my northernmost land, crying my name into the southern waters between us. For seven centuries, I clung to him with all I had.
But I would never know for certain. It was one of those emotions that could grip a nation and bring it to its knees, and for the sake of my people, I could not latch onto such a definite thing. And after those seven hundred years, he broke away from me.
Yes, I had found love...
...But I had also lost it long ago.
Lost to the ice-cold winters of my terrain.
My land was harsh, its summers but a flutter and its winters drawn out to an eternity... Had I not been a nation, I would have highly considered migrating elsewhere.
Alas; it was not my choice. My Nordic climate had been given to me, and all I could do was to focus on building my cities as close to the coast as possible, where the temperatures were milder and the hardships scarcer.
I sit on a ledge by the dock of Skeppsbron every morning, watching the boats crawl out to the sea as the sun's rays tease the edges of the buildings. The sounds of the morning bring my coast to life, and I smile faintly. It is one of the few times when I almost feel human.