AO3 has given me the cup of suffering attempting to load this so here I am. This is what I get for procrastinating.
Day 3 of lietpol week: Commonwealth
Given that pagans weren't exactly keen on writing, sue me if any of my references to ancient religion are incorrect. I tried my best :)
Lithuanian gods and goddesses are derived from written sources, not a Wikipedia page.
When we were young, he was wild, wayward and unfettered.
I oft sat and watched Lithuania, riding his horse bareback thro' fields untilled, his unclad, dirty toes splayed far above his heels, calves taut. He rode without bridle or saddle, hunched just so over the horse's rippling muscles.
He wore naught but the tunic on his back, neck and brow darkened by the sun.
And oh, how I longed to have that too.
My priests chastised and scolded. He was a pagan. A savage.
He often arrived at the chapel late, expensive new ganache rumpled – thrown hastily over his windswept hair and tunic.
I would tap his filthy hand during our prayers, when no one was watching, and he would start, remembering suddenly to pocket the knots around his neck, and the Romuva circling his finger in a ring of white, ribbed ivory.
He smelt of wild things – of leaves and berries crushed underfoot. Sweat and resin and earth.
Lithuania's smile, as he caught my hands and placed them on the rough-hewn trunk of a great oak tree, was espoused with his eyes. Warm and kind and timid.
"Can you feel its heart?"
"I cannot."
"Mother Zemyna lives among these branches."
"That's impossible."
"It isn't."
"Just this tree?"
"All the trees."
My eyebrows raised incredulously, and I crossed my arms; Lithuania mirrored my behaviour stiffly.
"I don't feel anything."
"You aren't feeling properly."
And with that retort, he leapt and gripped the leafy bough above him, and was lost in the dappled green.
-:-
Long summers were spent in meadows and orchards and along the sea shore. Ofttimes we carried a basket of filched sweets and books, and nothing else.
We would read together, sprawled upon grassy slopes or sandy knolls with my vellum Bible between our dirt-crusted legs. Lithuania greatly favoured an old leather-bound manuscript containing rich text and illuminated illustrations — a Flemish book of faerie tales. He would run his fingers over bright indigos and scarlets and emeralds, eyes glowing with wonder.
I wouldn't learn until many years later that he did not know how to read.
Our trades and crafts melded together, somewhere betwixt the throes of our aberrations.
Where once we would disappear for an afternoon, now we vanished for days, gathering in a multitude of hidden places, sharing stolen words and garnered whispers.
He would stand still in a sea of gilded grain and tilt his face to the sun, basking in its warmth. I would watch as the wind lifted his hair and tossed it about his ears, tunic billowing around his outstretched arms.
It was ethereal, the way the air twisted and writhed around him, fluid and constant all at once.
The priest was horrified to one day find that my skin was no longer pallid and white, but had taken to a handsome olive hue. He implored that I spend less of my hours fooling about with the pagan - that the circumstances of our affairs were merely a matter of consequence.
At night he turned his attention to the fireplace, enraptured, while fraught handmaids fussed over both of us, wiping the smudges of mud from our faces with apron corners, picking pondweed from our hair.
Lithuania paid little heed to their fretting, as he always did, and murmured strange runes to the glowing embers. He once told me about the goddess of the hearthplace, and I supposed that was what - who - he saw dancing there.
Oh, Lithuania would kneel before the alter to take communion with his king, but the priests knew that Lithuania would only truly kneel before his own gods.
Gods of sea and river and earth; harvest and wind and woodland.
One night, over a bowl of honeyed porridge and mead, the question is asked: "Are you happy, Lithuania?"
His response is quiet and wise.
"I want you to see what I see."
-:-
At length we grew into men, and he grew into himself, refined and golden and handsome. Round cheeks were replaced by a narrow - yet striking - complexion.
Swift with the sword and tempered by insufferable patience, he was a warrior, a visage of chivalry so opposite of myself I could hardly bear it.
By the time I reached my seven-hundredth year I had already attended a great many of the rituals of his people.
Where we would pray to the God Almighty for protection in battle, he would offer sacrifices to Kauriraris and Medeina deep in the forests of his land. The very soil - moist and black - was alive and breathing with an allure unbeknownst to man.
Even the trees whispered sweet nothings to me in a language that I could not fathom.
He draped me in his own ceremonial clothes, woven with symbols and runes and stories, and tied that colourful belt around my waist with a well-exercised care. On my head was placed a wreath of barley and wildflowers.
And he was arresting, all garbed in robes of gold and emerald, bringing forth the Holy Fire with his face painted in a paste of soot and juniper.
His crown of feathers and leaves and a myriad of flora glistened in the great flames - sweet with incense - and his mousy hair was set alight with an auburn hue.
He was colour, and beauty, and spirit.
He was reckless, wild abandon.
He was freedom.
Lithuanian mythological figures in order of appearance
Mother Zemyna: Goddess of the earth, the mother of every living being
Gabija: Goddess of the hearth and keeper of Holy Fire
Kauriraris: God of war (one of several)
Medeina: Hunting/forest goddess; worshipped and held in high regard by King Mindaugas - represented military interest of warriors
Should I have italicised Lithuanian terms and phrases? Probably. I didn't even proofread this. I'm done.