Disclaimer: I own nothing. Except for the plot perhaps.
A/N: Almost all stories I read with piri is all about her love story, how about her father-figures? I already made a story about her mother's POV so I decided to write one with Spain's side of the story. This is somewhat related to the story, 'The days of the past', but this can be considered as a stand-alone as well. I personally am not a parent but you can't deny that Spain isn't really the best parental figure most of the fandom portrays him to be. According to the manga-ka, Spain has a temper and quite a madman during his conquistador days, this story is the what-if on why he became feared during this time in his life and a little bit of a backstory on him as well. I also implied a rivalry between China and Spain on who's the one that'll take care of piri since the two of them, in my stories anyway, are both in love with her mother. This is mostly inspired by the song Viva la Vida by Coldplay and Adele's songs.
A/N(2): Some words you should know but most of them are self-explanatory but still, here's the meaning of some of the words:
dialogue/dictionary guide:
'hetalia' - first POV
'her' - italics / Ancient Philippines / Namayan
dios - god
niña pequeña - little girl
mi niña -my girl
hija/hijo - daughter/son
bastado - bastard
Inglaterra - England
Ustados Unidos - United States
Francia - France
Ingles - English (the people, not the langauge)
Baro and Saya - Offical traditional clothes of the Philippines that dates back during the Spanish Era. Depending on where you are in the Philippines, it is made with either abaca leaves or pineapple leaves.
Have you ever wondered what it would be like, to run away from everything? I do, every day think of it, but I have responsibilities that I can't escape from no matter hard I want to. I look over her, the exact replica of the one I had loved, still loves, sleeping on my bed, spread over like an eagle; it makes me softly smile a little and it also brings tears to my eyes, I let them fall down my cheeks in this rare moment that I am alone, in the comfort of my own room in the darkness of the night with only silence in the air. This young child, this young girl that has her brown eyes, her dark hair and the smile, oh dios the smile, it's the same.
I look down on my paperwork in hand, I let them go on my work table, took the candelabra and cautiously walk towards the child, her child, making sure not to wake up the niña pequeña, the child I now call my own as if she were ours, our own child that we have brought into this world. I can pretend that she is ours, no one else but ours. Tears falls down my eyes again, I gripped the candelabra harder and with every inch of control in my body, I put it down on the bedside table carefully and not near the any cloth.
I watch over mi niña hija, brushing any stray hair from her small face and the guilt I had felt before doubled over. I love my child, and I would protect her in any way I can, I'm not letting her out of my sight, I will not lose her like her mother. It's my fault that she lost her mother; I lost the love of my life, why was I born into this world as I am?
Did I do something awful in the past life if I have one? Did I anger the lord? Is this my punishment for the atrocities I have done to my father? To my brother? This is too cruel for a punishment if it is then.
I sometimes wished that I was like my own people, only worrying about their daily lives, not fretting over the lives of millions, not fighting your own flesh and blood and leaving them to die like I did to my own father and brother, not killing your beloved with your own ax and watches in horror as the life in their eyes goes out and life will never be the same. Waging over wars to your brothers in anything blood and you have no choice but to fight them off to the death, even if you know it in your heart that you don't want to but you have to.
With all my mistakes in the past, with all the blood I have spilled, the lives I have taken, the bonds I have severed, I will atone them starting with mi niña. I know that one day I'll have to let her go one day, but I don't want that, I don't want to let go of the last thing that I have of her, the last piece of her that remains as every trace of her was forcibly erased by my own people, I truly and hatefully resent them for it, I have something that China will never have.
I know the older nation hates me with every fiber of his being because I got the remaining piece of her, she is mine now, and no one else's but mine.
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I look over the young nation in front of me with a cold, hard glare. The audacious bastardo returned them with a glare of his own; he has guts, I have to admit, admirable for a young, budding nation. But it still won't let the anger in me simmer down, in fact, it doubled over and clenched my hands to control myself from killing him.
I made a promise to myself long ago that I won't lose our daughter to anyone else, especially to China, who would've thought though, that the very nation everyone in Europa ignored will be the one to whisk her away from me. His former colonizer, Inglaterra, had come close but that ingles' hijo had managed the impossible.
I grit my teeth as our respective representatives negotiate on the treaty, I hate it, damn it all to hell, damn it all, I will lose my daughter to this bastardo, Ustados Unidos. I remember her smiling on me when she was younger, crawling to my bed late at night because of her nightmares and thunder, when she had called me Papa for the first time, how she clung on to me as she got scared of Francia, how… how… why did it this all happen? When did it all go wrong?
She hates me now; I can still remember the last time I have seen her, it was raining hard like the heavens are crying for us, of how she controlled herself from bringing down a sword from my chest like I had done to her mother, of how tears run down her beautiful face and the anguished cry of Papa that escaped her lips. I remember staring at her with sadness and guilt, being ready to die by my child's hands, how I tried to smile at her and telling her how I'm glad to be her father, how I'm proud to what she has become, of how much I love her despite everything. I can still smell the scent of mud below our feet, the sound of rain pouring down upon us, just like before with her mother.
I remember tears running down my tears as I look over my daughter, the replica of the woman I will always love, of how they are drastically different yet the same; the face, the hair and the eyes are the same but the spirit although same in courage and strength, they lack the conviction and willingness to die; she has too much pride and shows little compassion and affection to others, my daughter loves almost everyone around her and wears her heart in her sleeves, she is cold and guarded to anyone else except a lucky few, mi niña shows her emotions openly and it doesn't matter if it's enemy or allies.
I want to hold my daughter in my arms again.
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I hated that smug look on China's face as he rubbed it in on how he's closer to my daughter than me these days, he's closer to her, I silently grit my teeth as I keep my ranging emotions at bay. It is my daughter's day and I don't want to destroy the remaining tattered bond we have left. I know she's tense towards me because of our past and we walk around in eggshells around each other. It breaks my heart that she's not as close to me as before. She doesn't call me Papa anymore, only by my country name, it makes my heart bleed. There's only civility between us, I would give up just about everything to have what we've had before, but it is ultimately my fault. I lost both the women I loved dearly.
They raised her flag and they brought down mine.
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Hundred years has passed, I walk around the city that I had once conquered, looking at the people that pass me by with my hands on the pockets. The old houses gone, high-rise buildings in their place, the roads once full of dust and mud, it is now cemented and paved black; gone are the long and heavy gowns as well as the baro and the saya that her people had once worn, in its place are modernized shirts, pants, and other clothes people wear nowadays, I don't really follow what mi amigo Francia called 'fashion', whatever's comfortable should be enough in my own opinion.
Life moves on and although history reminds us of the past long gone, there are some, like me, is tied to the past because people like me, lived it through, felt the agony, the tragedy, the hopelessness of the wars that had come and passed. The victories are bittersweet, for we have lost our own people, our own blood, sanity, morality, things that are precious to us; I suddenly feel so old, I look to the window in my left and saw my own reflection. I look so young, around in the mid-twenties, but I am old. Older than the oldest human in the world, older than some of the countries of the world, one of the older ones who helped shape the world as it is now, gave up everything for the power that is short-lived in terms of my own lifespan.
Gave people tragedies and sorrow, killed thousands if not millions, blood that'll forever stain my hands with the people I killed no matter how hard I clean them, no matter how hard I prayed for forgiveness. What use is that? Now that I think about it. We used religion as an excuse to wage wars to each other, our race to show our superiority to others, the most money, power blinded us. It still does to this day, but now we learn to be subtle.
I then tear my eyes away from my reflection when I hear her voice call out to me. Papa, she calls me Papa now. I look over to her, her daughter, my daughter, our daughter. She gave me the smile she showered onto me when she was younger, I smile too because I got her back, I got our daughter back.
Next to her is the same young nation that whisked her away from me, a man that is madly and irrevocably in love with a woman that he risked everything, even his own life, waged a war that's not his own, for the sake of the woman he loves. I understood his intentions because I too, was once like that. But unlike me, she is alive, she's still here. Mine died by my hand, I regret it every single day since, having nightmares and replaying the scene over and over my head. Drove me to madness and killed and conquered nations in hopes to bring her back. But you can't bring the dead back. They stay dead, never to be with again, never ever, ever.
Namayan, are you watching over us wherever you are?