AU Hetalia
The first chapter of "Argentum!" (It means Silver…or Money in Latin, but I much rather prefer the first meaning.) This story is still in the works! I haven't really thought too much about it…but it's a mix, hopefully of fantasy and steampunk. Something different from the usual angst and Rochu I've written.
Pairing: Germancest…(and perhaps others, soon to come).
Please tell me what you think!
We spend our entire lives searching for our masters...yet we may never find them. We live a lonely life of solitude…and when the time comes, fate takes us in her hands and delivers us from the insanity that descends upon this race when we fail to find our deliverers. Remember, child, that the humans now only view us as objects, as savages, and as instruments of destruction…They manipulate us to their advantage.
That is why we must hide from society, subjected to such a sad, cruel destiny. Our death from a broken heart, buried with a marker with no name.
Your true name will never be known, until you find that person, child.
He looked down at the freshly turned dirt, fighting, choking back a half-cry half-sob as he kneeled down, crushing the fragile white roses he held in his hand. He reached out, touching his head to the cool gray of the marble marker, gritting his teeth as he struggled to regain control of himself, trying not to slip away into unconsciousness in his grief.
Breathe in…
Breathe out…
He tried to hold on, not let the black consume him. His breathing slowed as he felt tears slip down his cheek as he mourned, no longer caring as alabaster white shirt dirtied. Death was not sudden, but it still came as a shock. He felt only sorrow and smoldering rage - The only person in the world that truly cared about him, that tended to him and looked after him – his only companion ever known…gone. The only person left of his race, rotting and decaying underground.
"Death from a broken heart."
As he recalled the words he scoffed, hands curling into the soft ground, veins straining over his knuckles. He was there for her last moments as mania finally took hold of her completely, the tattoos inked into her skin bleeding black. She lay there gasping, as he tried to restrain her from hurting herself, from descending further into insanity.
She was his mother figure, his caretaker, his friend –
And now, reduced to only a bloodless corpse, lying like a broken doll in the dirt, framed by flowers.
He took one last, long look at her peaceful expression before covering her face with dirt, so she could return to the earth again. He chose to look up at the sky, so that no more tears could be shed. A lazy afternoon sky – a cerulean sky with puffy white clouds floating like small boats in a vast ocean…he couldn't escape the memories that flooded black.
"Grandma, why can't I play with the other kids in the village?"
A child with shoulder length hair squatted on the ground, stick in hand as he drew patterns in the sand. In his other hand was a little rag doll, a chick, dirty from excessive playing, its cloth tattered, full of holes. The child was alone, as he hid behind the bushes, occasionally glancing up at the other children laughing and playing in the open, sniffling with contempt.
In truth, the child was lonely and jealous. His 'grandmother' forbid him to ever play or talk with the village kids. All he'd ever known was the companionship of his doll he simply named "Bird." He hugged Bird close, squeezing it, trying to squeeze all the loneliness into the doll. There was a slight rustle, as another head popped out – a smiling, freckled face.
"Hey you want to join us?"
The child looked up, tears almost clouding his vision. Finally! He coughed, blinked his eyes and said quickly, trying to reclaim his dignity, "I won't play if there isn't anything fun."
The human child laughed, took his hand as they ran off together, leaving Bird in the dirt.
He came back at sundown, tired, yet ecstatic as he ran all back to his house, laughing.
"Grandma! Grandma!"
He was greeted only by a stinging slap.
"Do you know how dangerous that was? How worried I was? How could you do this, when I told you that…?" She trailed off, wiping away tears of worry as she hugged the boy tight to her chest.
"You need to promise me you cannot ever do this again." Her eyes were grave, serious, as she placed her hands firmly on his shoulders, her expression severe.
"But….why?" The boy breathed quietly, not understanding.
"There is no 'why,' child. That is the way it has always been. They don't understand us – you must realize that we are different from them. We are not human, and must never think that you are the same. They could hurt you very much…and you could hurt them if you're not careful."
She looked away.
"They could take you away from me. We'll never be able to see each other again."
She brought out Bird and placed it in his arms, clasping the small boy's grubby hands with her long slender ones.
He never returned to the village again.
He stopped in his tracks, wavering. If he looked back at the grave…then he knew he would waste away in misery and sorrow. Yet he couldn't just walk away – it would be equivalent of him throwing all the memories he held precious to him in the trash –
"When the day comes as I pass on, you must not mourn for me. Forget¸ and move on with your life…be happy. All the new memories you create, I will be there with you. I will always be a part of you and remain in your heart."
He was a teenager, and he smirked, not looking back. They were such sappy, cheesy words that he snickered out loud, calling out, "Yeah, yeah. And when I die before you, grandmother," he spat out the word, "I'm sure as hell you won't miss me a bit."
He was bitter, the accretion of acrimony that had built up was from ignorance – he couldn't understand why he couldn't go out into the world, go into the bustling city and have some sort of semblance of a life. He felt like he was under house arrest, or even perhaps like a maiden that was confined to the house, unable to venture out into the world until a suitable husband was found in order to protect her maidenhood.
His grandmother only looked at him with sad eyes.
"It's for your-"
She was cut off by an incredulous laugh as he finished the rest of her sentence.
"For my own good?" His breath hitched, expression wild. "Do you think that making me rot away here in the outskirts of nowhere, forcing me to stay in this damn place, do you think it's doing me any good? I'm dying here, Grandma, I'm dying here and you fail to see that! I can't stay like this anymore, I can take care of myself fine! Why? Why? You won't ever answer, and you won't ever agree –"
He stopped abruptly, catching his breath.
"I'm sorry, 'Ma."
He stormed out, slamming the door behind him.
The memories began to become too painful. He squeezed his eyes shut, shaking his head, trying to dispel the uncomfortable thoughts. He never did venture out into the city, into the world. Guilt was constantly eating away at him as he wandered through the wilderness, through dense forests and pleasant meadows, rocky mountains…he was a coward, and he knew that.
He was too ashamed to go back and face the mess he had left.
After seventeen years' time, only a fleeting time for his race, he finally summoned the courage to confront and make peace. When he came back, he was only met with carnage, and nothing else.
Insanity.
She'd lost control. She'd lost her mind, her grasp of logic – the denigration was too hard for him to bear as he watched her feast on the flesh of the villagers, ripping limbs apart, twisting heads off like plucking daisies – there was no stop to her rampage.
The time had come, he realized, for her end.
She was always peaceful, quietly loving the humans from afar. She thought that he didn't know, but he always caught her gazing out the window, staring at the far off village at the foot of the mountain. He'd wondered why she told him never to go; never to talk to human beings when her actions were otherwise.
Dangerous. They're too dangerous.
Perhaps it was…we, that are too dangerous for them, he'd once thought to himself.
It was at a clearing in the village square where he finally saw her stop when she caught his scent. Animalistic, primal as she jerked up from the broken body she was holding opening her jaws wide to hiss and screech at him. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a child of tender age whimper behind wooden stairs, too scared to move as he watched the massacre.
The mother lay beside the boy, her legs twisted in an ugly fashion, eyes dead and soulless. He'd recognized the dead girl at once. She was the girl that once played with him, seventeen years before.
Seventeen years was a long time.
"Ma."
He called out, his voice dispelling in the emptiness of the place.
"Grandma."
He wished his voice would register in her, that she'd recognize him.
There was only the sound of enraged shrieking and brutal grunts.
He took slow, steady steps towards her, his voice cracking as he tried to hide the pain from his voice. "..Do….do you no longer remember me?" He moved forward as her eyes turned more and more blood red, her lips pulled from her red stained gum and yellow teeth.
"I'm your son. Your grandson, your nephew, your child, your flesh, your friend, your kind….I was your everything."
He felt his skin rise, break, split, his body transform. It was an uncomfortable shift when he felt half of himself tear apart, massive black wing unfurling, the canines elongating, biting into his lips. Fiery red, the color of boiling blood, his silver hair pooled down his back.
Half of a wing.
The fall of an angel, destruction of innocence. He was the bastard child of those angels that had once graced the land and tainted their blood with that of mortals –children to pay the price as punishment to roam this earth with no end in sight. He was a beast with an inescapable fate.
When the time comes, kill me.
The time was now.
He advanced, and the air between the two grew stale.
I'm sure all of you know by now that "He" is Prussia/ Gilbert, king of awesome, etc etc. Hopefully I'll be able to add some of that later, and I hope he wasn't too OOC.
Constructive Criticism is great…so please read and review!