Russia knelt in the icy Siberian snow, a small, cooling corpse cradled to his chest. Chocolate locks cascaded over his arms, lovely dark eyes stared sightlessly at the gray sky. Blood stained a stunning, handmade dress, dripping like thick tears from the jewel encrusted breast. Tears were frozen to Russia's cheeks.

"Why her?" he whispered, his arms trembling. "She was not part of your fight…she did no wrong. She simply was." He bowed his head over the petite corpse, his massive shoulders shaking with silent sobs. The young woman's body grew colder in his arms, the last vestiges of her life draining away.

Russia's tears made pain lance through his sore body-the turmoil in the country had inflicted its own wounds on him. But his thoughts were only for the girl in his arms. He raised his head to the sky, which, as if to spite him, began to spit snow in his face.

"Why?" he shouted. "Why take her? She's just a child!" It seemed to him the world had created him only to continually knock him back down and laugh at him as he struggled back to his feet. Was there nothing in this world that was sacred, nothing he could hold onto and keep safe? What, he begged to know, had he done to deserve this life he'd been given?

"You know this was not my doing, Ivan," said a low, rumbling voice in Russia's ear. He didn't need to turn to know the man to whom he spoke. He'd heard that voice,that tone too many times not to recognize it.

"Why didn't you stop them?" he demanded without looking over.

"It was not my place," General Winter replied. "I protect you from outside threats…I cannot protect you from yourself."

"They slaughtered them…like animals," Russia whimpered. The horror of it was still painted across his eyelids; again and again he saw the tsar stagger backwards, Marie take cover beneath the window, the gun smoke fill the room. He himself had been ignorant of the plan until the very moment it was declared to the royal family. After the first round, he had been tied up, already weakened from the beginnings of the civil war, and made to listen to the screams as the Grand Duchesses were killed in two separate sessions of decimation. When it had ended, his bonds been cut, the killers (Russia could see them as nothing else) fled, he had carried her slender body out of the stuffy, smoky basement, up to the fresh air she had loved.

"People are ugly," General Winter said simply.

"She was so beautiful…" Russia pushed the silky hair away from the pale face, recalling the list time he'd seen her smile: she had been carrying water in from the well, to the house where they had been exiled, and she had looked exhausted, but when she raised her head and met Ivan's gaze, she had still managed a smile to show her spunk would not be beaten down by poor circumstances. "My little girl…my princess." He looked up to General Winter with wide lavender eyes. A flicker of something passed through General Winter's steely gray eyes, but nothing more.

"She is but a babe. They must have been truly barbaric to kill her the way they did," he intoned, as if he were watching a particularly interesting group of lab rats, making notes on their behavior.

"But they are all me!" Russia cried. "How can I tell good from bad? I understand their anger…I know the tsar was wrong. But why kill the child? What good came of this?" He waved a hand over her face, turning blue in the frigid air. The tears began to come again, turning to ice on Russia's ashen face. "It was senseless killing…my poor girl…" He hugged her close, breathing in the faint smell from her lovely hair, feeling the softness of her skin against his cheek. Surely, surely, if he held her close enough, if he could make her warm again, she would breath once more, would laugh again, that sound like tinkling bells...she would pull him close and whisper some plan to prank the newest nobles with a mischevious gleam in her eyes, an impish smile on her lips, would run to him when her mother threatened to punish her for some misdeed or another, telling him to take her side (he could never resist). And Alexey...Alexey and Olga and Marie too...

"There is nothing to be done for her," General Winter said. "Leave the girl. You must go back to Moscow and St. Petersburg. Russia is in chaos. You must do something."

"There is nothing I can do!" Russia spat. "I am helpless in the hands of these factions! They will destroy me!"

General Winter threw back his head and laughed; it was a cold, merciless, humorless sound, more terrifying than his rage. Sometimes Russia still heard it in his nightmares. "No, Ivan, no one but I has the power to destroy you. This girl is insignificant. You will not fall." Almost immediately, his head snapped off to the side. He blinked his eyes and stretched his throbbing jaw, looking to see Russia on his feet, his eyes blazing with fury, his fist cocked to hit the General again. More than anything, General Winter just had a very beamused look on his face, as if he were still trying to process what had just happened.

"She is not insignificant!" Russia roared. "She was a beautiful, innocent little girl who had as much reason to die as a saint!" General Winter's characterization of one of the few humans who had truly cared for Ivan struck him to the bone and the idea that the world would forget her goodness, her beauty, her charm as quickly as they forgot everything else almost knocked him breathless.

"She is worthless," General Winter said disdainfully, enjoying baiting Russia. "Just a human. Nothing more." Russia gave a cracked cry of pain and threw himself at General Winter, pounding his fists into the man's chest, face and arms. They tumbled down into the snow and General Winter allowed Russia to straddle his abdomen, beating out his rage on the General's body. Then, with a flick of his hand, he knocked the towering nation aside and rose smoothly to his feet, his face unmarked by Russia's worst hits.

He gave Russia a powerful kick in the ribs, making him yelp with pain. The girl lay forgotten in the snow, her fingers turning brittle in the biting cold.

He grabbed ahold of Russia's scarf and pulled him to his feet, boxed his ears and gave him several quick punches to the face. Blood spurted from his nose and lip, as one broke and the other split. He drew back his arm to hit back, but the General was too fast. He caught Russia's wrist, twisted his arm behind his back, placed his knee at the small of Russia's back and drove him into the ground, beating him senseless with effortless ease. The largest country in the world was powerless in the grip of General Winter.

When he had finished, Russia lay breathless and bleeding in the snow, his cheek pressed against the snow, his lilac eyes fixed on the sky, his body alight with searing pain. General Winter gave another empty laugh.

"You amuse me, Ivan. All these years have passed, yet in a moment of heat, you forget that I cannot be defeated. I can hardly be borne! You think any of those other pathetic countries could tolerate my visits? No. But you, Russia, are stubborn and stupid enough to keep hunched over and huddled in on yourself, eking out a life in the most barren place short of the poles. If you want to throw yourself to the wolves for the life of one spoiled girl, go ahead. I will live on without you." There was a dramatic swirl of his cape, and he was gone, leaving Russia alone in the snow.

Almost alone.

Russia crawled forwards, grabbing onto the stiff arm of the girl and pulled her over to him.

"Anastasia," he whispered, kissing her frozen cheek. "My poor Anastasia…" He buried his face in her hair and closed his eyes. What was there to live for, when girls like her were killed in the name of progress? The cold settled over him like a familiar ache and he bore it like always had-in silence. He would not give General Winter the pleasure of hearing him weep. Sleep crept into his eyes and his mind blackened, giving him peace at last.

When Russia's eyes opened again, he was warm. The air was dry. Something-a pile of blankets-was heavy on his chest. A soft clatter reached his ears and a familiar voice spoke.

"You wake, brother. I feared you would not." Russia, with great effort, turned his head to see Belarus sitting by his bedside, her face devoid of expression as always, a saucer and empty cup in her lap. Any wariness he had about her proximity vanished as he took her in. As strange as his sisters were, no one could comfort him like they could, even when they made no move to. Their mere presence was enough.

"Anastasia," he rasped weakly, his eyes pleading with her.

"She has been buried," Belarus lied easily.

"Where?"

"I do not know," his sister said. How could she tell Ivan what had been done to the Romanovs? About the burning, the chemicals, the well? No...it would kill him to hear that such things had been done to his precious Anastasia and Alexey. "It was kept secret for her safety. They worried angry rebels might desecrate her grave."

"I'd kill them!" Russia bellowed, sitting straight up, his hands clenched into fists. "I will! I'll kill all of them, those bastards!" No...she most certainly could not be truthful with him now. Maybe later. Maybe someday.

Belarus put a hand on his forehead and eased him back down. "Lie still, brother. You are unwell; drink this tea." She picked up a cup from the table by the bed and offered it to him. Russia thought to protest, but relented and allowed Belarus to feed him the drink. He groaned; his body felt branded with General Winter's marks in addition to those from the civil war beginning to rage in his country.

"Sleep now, brother," Belarus said, as gentle as Russia had ever heard her. "You hurt badly; I know." She leaned forward and Russia flinched, but she merely pressed a kiss to his forehead, the picture of a concerned sister.

Russia let his eyes fall shut. His dreams were filled with her, laughing, crying, playing, dancing, singing, joking, skipping, twirling, jewels glittering on her chest and forehead, chocolate curls bounced around her creamy shoulders, her hands grasped at those of her siblings, her beauty and liveliness like a star in the stark chill of his land. From afar, he had watched her. From her side, he had been unable to save her. Anastasia.

My little Anastasia. You will always be my star.