(A/N: Hello there! This will be another multi-chapter story. I do not own Hetalia, as always. This story shifts viewpoints, usually from chapter to chapter, but in the occasion that a chapter is not marked with a character name, the perspective continues from the character of the previous chapter. Often this will be in the case of Iceland, who is the main character in this story. Thank you for reading!)

Emil

On a brisk summer morning, a teenage boy sat on a beaten-up brown suitcase. The couple ahead of them had too many bags for just two young adults, and he was forced to suffer the consequences of their inadequate packing skills. The boy sighed, waving away the ashy scent of cigarette smoke. His eyelids were heavy with sleep; it wasn't every day he woke up at four o'clock in the morning to be ushered to an airport, handed a boarding pass, and sent away.

He did not know how it happened. At first, his mom was accusing him of cheating on a test. The next, she was in the hospital, suffering from third-degree burns. He stared at his hands as he waited; they were as pale as the rest of him. He quickly looked away, wondering how long they'd stay that way.

He had grabbed her arm firmly. It was a normal response for an angry teenager. What wasn't normal, however, was the sizzling sound or the smell of burning flesh. Her scream was ear-curdling; his hands were fiery. Their pale complexion seemed to have been replaced with the hottest lava. He released her immediately, screaming.

"EMIL—STEILSSON! WHAT THE FUCK HAVE YOU DONE? CALL AN AMBULANCE, BOY!" If he hadn't been at a loss for words, he would have shouted that he couldn't pick up the phone, for he ceased to be safe. It was still a miracle how he managed to call the hospital and take his mother away. He'd managed to calm down a minute later, enough to feel as though the incident did not happen, if there weren't burn marks on his mother's arm.

Emil often kept a level head. It took a lot to make him angry; many people in his life regarded this as some sort of exceptional talent. Some people didn't think he was even capable of anger. It was only when the accusations came when Emil lost all control. Now, as a tall man with a brown beard checked his bags, he couldn't help but wonder why his mother even made such a grave mistake. The doctors at the hospital said that the skin grafts would take a while, and as Emil's father died a long time before he was born, he was sent to live with an aunt and uncle he'd never heard of in Norway. Nobody told him how long he was going to stay there, but he knew he probably wouldn't see the beautiful mountains of Iceland for a while. She's terrified of me. Of course she doesn't want me in her house anymore. For the first time ever, Emil found himself doubting what he was. It was clear that he wasn't human.

He wasn't without money. His mother gave him a credit card to buy whatever he needed. Emil didn't know how to feel about her. She didn't show any signs of hatred or disgust, yet here he was, sitting on an airplane with a Starbucks in hand, ready to take off. Perhaps he should just feel nothing. No sense of gratitude, no anger, nothing to provoke him or cause tears or make him smile. Doing so would probably be vital to venturing into the unknown.

It was interesting to think of this whole ordeal as an adventure, like the ones Emil would embark on as a little kid. Instead of fighting giants in the mountains that surrounded his house, he would fly across the sky to a distant land, to face relatives who have never been household names. In the mind of a little boy, Norway was adventure itself. But Emil gave up his make-believe quests years ago. He sighed, staring once more at his hands. How many more people would he hurt in his lifetime? He didn't ask for anything like this, and he couldn't think of any logical explanation as to why he could even do something so ridiculous. It was as if he had decided to step into a comic book one day, and now he was unsure if he was still trapped inside.

The plane left the ground, taking Emil away from everything he'd ever known, with only his favorite books to keep his conflicting thoughts from eating him alive.

The plane landed safely in Oslo, on time, as expected. Everything around him seemed normal. Passengers stood up and began to remove their luggage from overhead bins, congesting the aisles of the plane. Emil frowned in annoyance; his ticket put him at a window seat, making the task of leaving the plane even harder. I can be patient, he told himself, watching as a line of people slowly walked off. Though his patience wasn't always high, he could usually wait. The most he felt with impatience was frustration, which he regarded as separate from anger. At this point, he tried to avoid anger at all costs. Maybe, if he could live his life detached from rage, it would be as if nothing strange had ever happened to him. He could forget, and all of this could seem like a crazy dream. So he'll suck it up. He'll live in Norway, and return home when his mom recovered from her mysterious accident. Emil left the plane with higher hopes than before. A month or so in Norway with complete strangers . . . an adventure. Who knows? It could even turn out to be fun.

The second task in the quest of Emil Steilsson was to find both his bag and his family members. The first part was relatively easy; he had no trouble reaching his flight's baggage claim or finding his battered suitcase.

But where would he find people he had never heard of?

He'd been given two names: Aleksander and Erika Bondevik, but nothing else to go off of. He hadn't the faintest idea what they looked like, or if they were waiting for him, or if they knew his name. They had to; they were supposed to pick him up from the airport! Emil figured that the best idea was to wait for them by his flight's carousel, figuring they'd recognize his flight.

It took an hour for Emil to notice a man and a woman, accompanied by a bored-looking young adult. The woman's brunette hair was graying and her skin was wrinkly, but she smiled when she caught Emil's eyes. The man was tall and stood off to the side, much like the young adult, whose pale blonde hair and dark blue eyes gave off an aura of mystery. He seemed completely unrelated to the smiling woman or the towering man, which only convinced the Icelandic teen that he was watching the wrong couple.

"Excuse me, are you Emil Steilsson?" she asked in Emil's second language. "I've been told you speak English fluently. I'm sorry I don't know any Icelandic, but—"

"It's fine. I'm Emil. I'm assuming you are the Bondeviks?" It felt very awkward to Emil. He didn't like talking to adults; the conversations he had with his mother and her friends were all so obviously forced, so terribly superficial that he grew a strong distaste for it. What was worse was making small talk with strangers. Maybe after a couple of days, they'd learn to leave him alone.

"Welcome to Norway, Emil! We're all very excited to have you!" The looks on the men's faces showed otherwise. Each wore an expression of pure indifference, just like Emil. "I'm Aunt Erika, this is Uncle Aleksander—" she gestured towards the tall brunette, who nodded. "—and this is our son, Lukas." He gave Emil the world's most awkward wave. Emil wasn't sure how to respond. "Lukas, why don't you take his bag?"

"It's fine," Emil insisted, but the young adult shrugged and grabbed the old handle of his suitcase. He walked about a foot behind the family as he followed Erika to their car, where they would drive for two hours in heavy airport traffic until they reached the Bondevik's house, where he would stay for the month. He took the back seat of their silver mini-van, though there wasn't much purpose in doing so. The seat next to Lukas was open, yet he'd rather sit in the back with his suitcase.

Emil loved solitude more than anything else. He didn't see a point in having a lot of friends. Every day, he walked outside and dared to venture into the mountains and valleys around his family's property. Perhaps it was his upbringing, living with only his mother a vast landscape, but he couldn't stand crowds, or loud conversations, or anything that interrupted his wandering thoughts. He was slowly becoming an expert photographer, and he planned to invest in a future of documenting nature through pictures. His prized possession, the professional camera his mother bought him for his sixteenth birthday, rested safely in his brown suitcase. He would definitely be using it in beautiful Norway.

Today, his thoughts didn't venture as much as they usually did. Every part of his mind ached to know how long this visit would last. When his mother spoke to him, she sounded tense, and only told him about what he was supposed to do at the airport. He was under the impression that she loved him. Maybe she was using a bad situation to expand his horizons. She promised to call frequently, and she trusted him with a credit card. He cursed at himself. Didn't he agree to feel nothing? Did he have no idea how dangerous his anger was? As if a freak accident wasn't enough to prove it. Once it happened, he didn't even bother denying it. His mother was in the hospital, because of him. All he had to do was keep calm, and everything would be normal again, even if he were some sort of demon. He didn't think he'd be able to take it if he believed anything else.