a rather fantasy-ish/mythological-ish take on prussia, from spain's POV
also they still think hungary is a boy at that point
BEST WHEN READ WITH THIS SONG IN THE BACKGROUND watch?v=POgViZ_Zcek&feature=kp
on tumblr: gatsbeh-wat-gatsbeh - post/89004261682/hijo-de-la-luna
Sometimes when he wandered far off his territory, past the rivers and mountains, he saw him; the Son of the Moon.
The Son of the Moon was as pale as the old lullaby told. From far off he would spy on his white beauty, because there was no other word for his glowing splendor. Antonio could see from the safety of the woods how he only crept out at night, hiding from the clergymen that kept him and dodging human contact like wildfire, only to climb up the roof of the cathedral's bell and sit staring at the moon. Sometimes, in full moons, he swore he saw in the dark silhouette of the child his jaw moving up and down, as if he was talking to her.
Every full moon Antonio would visit, and as the years went by leaving him completely unaffected to the ageing of those around him, allowing him to keep his infant body, he saw that the Son of the Moon was not affected either. He had mixed feelings about it.
It was under a Blood Moon, after three generations of clergymen and royals that scolded the boy in the mornings, that the Son of the Moon turned his head around, giving his back to the moon and facing Antonio from the heightened distance. And he saw piercing crimson eyes that nullified everything he thought he knew about this old child. In a whisper that he heard from miles away, he said: "I see you. Both of you."
Both? It was then that Antonio heard a crack from above, another one inside his skull, and a streak of gold before he saw red and then black.
"Has he healed?"
"I don't know."
He opened his eyes and found a blue pair and a red pair.
"He has," the one with cerulean eyes observed.
Antonio glanced sideways, wincing at the sharp pain atop his head, and saw the same town in whose outskirts he hid. A large branch lay snapped beside him, and the blonde boy had leaves tangled in his wavy hair. It wasn't hard to piece together. "Who are you?" he mused shyly.
"I'm the Kingdom of France!" chirped the blonde. "Or Francis, if you please."
"Kingdom of Castille," Antonio muttered, wide-eyed at the sky. "Or Antonio. Pleased to meet you."
The Son of the Moon remained silent.
"And you?" the boy called Francis nudged.
Antonio saw something glint in those red eyes. "The Teutonic Order." He paused, his eyes now void of whatever had momentarily occupied them and darting around the dirt floor. "Gilbert."
"Why are your eyes red?" Antonio blurted it out before noticing. He couldn't help himself. "I thought they were supposed to be gray."
The Son of the Moon remained silent.
"You should leave," said the boy, turning back to the town.
The other boys watched him walk away with a ghostlike grace, disappearing into the deserted alleyways of the sleeping city.
Francis helped Antonio back home, and he couldn't help but voice his concerns.
"Why are his eyes red?" he repeated as they wandered between the trees in the general direction of their own homes. "Francis, you live closer to him, no? Do you know why the Son of the Moon's eyes are not gray?"
"The lullaby says they are," the boy replied smoothly, a vague smile on his face as he looked at the brightening sky. "Maybe he's not the Son of the Moon."
Antonio knew that couldn't be true, because he had seen him talk to her.
The Tree Moon brought new visitors. Antonio had been walking through the woods that led to the town where the Son of the Moon lived, when he spotted Francis' blonde head facing away from him, but not towards the town. He stood beside him without a word, trying to find what he was looking at, and spotted a brawl in the distance, between the trees.
"I think that's the Kingdom of Hungary," Francis said idly. "I don't know his name."
The Son of the Moon fought like a wolf; predatory and ruthless, and with a toothy snarl. The boy he fought with, a lanky brunette, fought back just as bravely. The glint of red over white robes was ever so contrasting with the other boy's olive green eyes and garment. Even though they had the body of children, their fighting was more lethal than the northern barbarians.
"I talked to some peasants," murmured Francis without peeling away his gaze. "Legend says he did use to have gray eyes, centuries ago. So he is the Son of the Moon."
Antonio had known that. He still didn't know why they became red, but as he saw the boys spar, he thought he knew why those eyes were infused with the color of blood.
Under the light of the Oak Moon filtering through the light canopy, the three reunited.
"Why do you keep coming?" Gilbert asked, his firm look void of any emotion.
"We want to be friends with you!" Francis said in a singsong tone. "Children like us should stick together!"
"We'll be divided, sooner or later," replied Gilbert coldly. "War and death are inevitable in these lands."
"But our Kingdoms are a different thing!" Francis insisted. "Here, let's make a pact."
The blonde gracefully took out a dagger from under his robes, which made Gilbert jump back and adopt a battle stance. Unaffected, Francis wrapped his left hand around the blade and pulled, wincing at the cut, but his smile still there. "No matter what happens between our Kingdoms," he recited, as if reading letters flooding out from the palm of his hand. "We'll always be friends, yes?"
He handed the knife to Antonio. He was hesitant, but Antonio decided that not having a friendship like this in a life like his would drive him insane. So he slit the palm of his left hand. "No matter what," he repeated.
Gilbert's shoulders slowly dropped, and he dropped to sit beside them again. He seemed to hibernate in thought for at least several minutes, until he looked up, and he had changed. His eyes seemed more open, and he grinned. "No matter what," he said as well, as he cut into his hand with Francis' knife.
The three of them joined their bloodied hands and sealed the vow.
It was not until many years later, after that pact had been stretched and distorted endless times but always returning to its original form, that Antonio learned something new about Gilbert, from none other than the mysterious and distant Toris.
"I was there when they found him," he narrated. "On a mountain, way too far into the west than I should have ventured into. He was alone, newborn, spattered with blood whose origin we didn't know, and crying."
Antonio leaned forward in his seat, desperate to hang on to this knowledge before he sailed to open sea on the following day.
"They believed him a demon," Toris continued, taking a hint from his silence. "The spawn of a witch. And you know what they do with witches."
"They tried to burn him," Antonio supplied, his eyes closing with pain.
"For five days, they kept the fire burning, but the child wouldn't turn into ash." A pause. "So instead, they tried beheading. And when that failed, they tried strangling. Drowning. Dismembering," he continued, grimacing. "But the boy kept coming back."
Antonio could have vomited right there. He had been a baby!
"I went back home after they locked him up. I don't know what they did with him after that, but…"
Antonio remained silent. Toris frowned at him, probably evaluating his silence as strange coming from him, but continued.
"When I battled him with Feliks, his eyes had become so red with rage, he was a monster."
Antonio noticed the lack of Gilbert's nightly escapades to talk to the moon, but the first time he came back from overseas, he found him talking to her again. The moment he made his presence known and sat beside him on that rooftop, Gilbert silenced.
"Does she answer?" Antonio asked, knowing it was none of his business but unable to hold in his curiosity.
"She used to," Gilbert replied briefly. The Wolf Moon would have a beautiful reflection in his eyes, swirling in a symphony of white and silver, if it wasn't for the red that cut through it. "I haven't heard her in centuries. She doesn't like what I became."
Antonio lowered his head and nodded slowly. They now had the body of young adults, leaning back on the slanted tiles on the roof. Antonio had acquired a deep tan with both his travels and the diversification of his people. But Gilbert remained white as chalk.
It was only centuries later, when the pact was tearfully broken, when him and Francis cradled Gilbert's broken body to their chests, when they wept over what they were forced to do to him, that Gilbert smiled honestly for the first time.
The war had destroyed them all, but this was the part they had dreaded. The dissolution.
The moon waned above them, rippling like waves on their tears and on Gilbert's eyes. The crimson on his body flowed freely, as if escaping, but the crimson in the Son of the Moon's eyes dispelled, just as the hate and rage and pain that had plagued his being in his long lifetime, replaced with a soft silver that melted with the moon herself.