AN: deanon from the lj meme; the prompt was for Belarus whispering, so here's that. I intended for it to be fluffier, but it's about as fluffy as Belarus wanted to be; she writes herself and it seems she prefers the crackier side of life.
sinine
Today, she is cracking porcelain.
Belarus sits within a circle of the stuff, presented in the form of vases and pottery and miscellaneous decoration. Her hands are hurt, laced with little cuts that burn strawberry-red, but the injuries can't be too painful because otherwise she would have stopped.
He trusts that she'd stop, at least.
"Good morning," Estonia says, as he's been standing over her for the past three minutes and she hasn't bothered to address him. Her head is bowed, with her eyes set only to her ware, so it takes her a good few seconds more to address him now that he's spoken.
She glares before replying. "What?"
"Good morning," he repeats, deciding that composure will win out in the end.
"No, it isn't," she snaps back. Her glare contorts. "It's a bad morning, and it's a wet morning, and it's going to be an ice-blue day."
It takes him a moment to understand her statement. She reaches to pick up another ceramic – this time a flask – and when she grips it between ten fingers, the condensation spreads out to copy her handprint. There must have been recent rain here, up in the Sinimäed Hills.
His hills, for the sake of specifics. She is on his land and smashing things into it, so the weather is really the least of his concerns.
"I'm sure it won't end up wasted," he says. It's more to reassure himself than her. "May I ask why you're doing… this?"
"Why do you need to know?" she counters. "It's none of your business."
Estonia opens his mouth to argue, but she doesn't wait for his retort, instead focusing her attentions on shaking the flask. Her lips twist when she doesn't hear the sound of coins bouncing about inside, so she raises it above her head and prepares to propel it.
Wishing to avoid the fate of being shattered along with the flask, Estonia steps swiftly out of the way, just in time to miss the item in question whizzing past where his shoulder had been. He can't tell if she was aiming at him or not, and he thinks it best not to ask.
"My business," he says, once he's sure she isn't going to throw anything else for the time being, "would be why you have decided to do… whatever it is you're doing… here, over all other places. I'd like to know."
Belarus doesn't respond right away. She lifts her hand to her hair and slowly runs it through, platinum locks over pink skin. Exertion looks good on her, even if it does come from violence; the red in her cheeks could be from the chill in the atmosphere, but he tells himself it's from all the smashing.
"Can't I visit you?" she asks, when she eventually decides to speak. Her words are restrained, or at least softer than before – he has never truly heard her talk without authority, and it's not absent now. "I wanted to spend time with you. It feels like I never see you."
"Of course you can visit me," Estonia says. It's an instinctive reply; even with his ever-growing unease, he doesn't want to enrage her by denying her. "But this isn't the best way to go about it."
She runs her palms over her next victim, a plain bowl, and simply says, "Why?"
Estonia can hardly believe his ears. "Because you're making an environmentally-unfriendly mess!"
"It is not a problem," Belarus insists. "It should be easy for you to clean up; it will take no time at all."
She's exasperating – but that's the way she's been for centuries, so he should really know better by now. She was quirky at best when they lived with Lithuania, back when she was still so young and Estonia was still so small, and neither had countrymen to call their own.
"These items," he says. He delivers a customary gesture towards the broken pieces, sweeping his arm through the air. "Have they… offended you in some way?"
"No," she mutters, brow furrowing.
She says nothing else, tossing the bowl behind her with such force that it breaks up from the very centre. Morbidly curious, Estonia watches the scene of destruction until all the pieces have fallen. Some roll away down the slope, while some jut up proudly from the soil.
"I don't mean to sound rude," he goes on, looking back to Belarus. "I'm curious. I don't see why you need to be here to damage them, and I don't see why you're damaging them in the first place. I'm hoping you'll enlighten me."
Belarus rolls back her head, the tips of her tresses brushing over damp grass. "They don't deserve to be in one piece."
"Why?"
"They are disappointments."
Estonia sighs, nudging a nearby porcelain shard with his toe. "If you wanted to visit me, why bring all these along?"
Truth be told, he doesn't expect an answer. He suspected something like this would happen, because it's tied to location. The last time he saw her atop this hill, she was holding her very first flag, declaring war on the planet but complaining about the colour scheme. So many blues, she's said. Too much water and too many oceans.
It's a wonder that she hates the colour so much when she's always clad in it, but it's only because of who gave her such a garment in the first place. Her last visit to these hillsides was a long time ago, so it stands to reason that her peculiar habits would only get worse.
"This one is nice," she says, her voice enough to startle Estonia back to the present. She's holding a statuette, still porcelain but painted - a bird, with a brown muzzle and blue feathers. Blue, of all things; of course she hasn't changed. "Do you like this one?"
"My opinion doesn't matter," Estonia says. He finds himself grinning, on the verge of laughter. "You're going to split it open anyway."
For a moment, Belarus appears to take offence. She smoothes the ruffled skirts spread across her knees, primly pointing her nose into the air, and Estonia panics as moves to stand. She hasn't raised a hand to him for centuries, not since she was Lithuania's Duchy and he was Livonia's servant, but his mind tends to fixate on worst-case scenarios.
As it turns out, she does raise her hand, but it's not for the sake of inflicting pain. Taking shaky steps towards him, she offers him the porcelain bird, urging him to take it with the scrutiny of her gaze.
Estonia faintly wonders if he's being tricked, but moves to take it all the same. His hands make contact with the bird's wings just as Belarus takes another step forward, her breath heavy against his ear and her body warm before his own. The day really is cold, he simply hadn't noticed it earlier; he hadn't noticed himself missing her, all dressed with wool and raying heat.
"This one isn't so disappointing," she says, no more than a reticent whisper. "It's for you."
The sound of her makes him shiver; she renders him surprised, in her usual way. He never knows where he stands with her, or what she thinks of him, but moments like these make him reconsider his belief that she isn't worth breaking digits over.
"I see," is all Estonia manages to murmur back.
He can't help feeling slightly baffled: she hasn't given him a gift in years. On the whole, she's not been too generous since the fall of their last Union, when their roles conflicted once again - he may have been bound to his brothers, but she was still Ruthenia's daughter, and he finds himself wondering if she's here now, amidst their glorious independence, for the sake of nostalgia. Perhaps she's been sent by Russia – or perhaps these things are Russia's, and she's decided to give them away or break them to get on her Vanya's nerves, which is a more likely explanation.
"Yes; you must see," Belarus continues, and a shudder runs through Estonia's core. The now-vacant hand of hers lifts to his shoulder; the press of it is gentle, barely-there, and she lets her fingers fall one by one. "I've been trying to find the best of them."
She's acting like she's spilling secrets in a crowded room, keeping much too closer, contently voiceless. Even with her tone tame, she commands his attention; her hushed voice is only just louder than the thud of his heart, and it's suddenly kitten-quick.
"Ah," he says. "Thank you?"
"You're welcome," Belarus replies. She is seemingly unaware of the havoc her vocalisation is playing with his spine. It's a good sort of havoc, an enjoyable kind. "I know you like swallows, and I think they are better than bowls or flasks."
She arches then, to push herself closer. Her hand doesn't tighten its grip on him and she doesn't lower her head to his neck, hovering near without making up the distance. It's how she is with everyone; she will only go so far before she retreats into detachment.
If he could (or, if he wasn't so sure she'd kick him somewhere unpleasant and run away) he would move to hold her, just to try it. His corner of the world is lonely enough as it is, with the emptiness of the Baltic Sea before him and the clasp of Ivan behind him, but she's locked in entirely. It's a shame, for she is - in his eyes, at least - the belle of the continent. His interest is a passing one, but that's only because she doesn't let down her guard; he wouldn't know where to begin – much like all her neighbours, he supposes.
He's aware that she probably won't come near him after this for another few months, perhaps years – but for now, he's happy to stand amidst shards, smiling to himself until she bores of him enough to depart. Maybe time will make her gentle, but he doubts it will come to that.
Today she might be meeker, but tomorrow she'll return to cracking porcelain.
end.