Hi! This is my first attempt at Hetalia fanfiction, so I hope that you enjoy it!
Clarisse Irvingson glanced up at the Lincoln Monument building, glistening in the light of the sunrise, and sighed. When her parents had told her that she was getting a vacation for her seventeenth birthday, she had imagined soft sand and warm sunlight, some tropical beach or Paris.
Nope. No such luck, she had been placed on a stuffy, smelly bus in a seat next to the most obese, sweaty man on the whole bus. Clarisse honestly couldn't find the heart to blame her parents, they had paid for the whole trip, plus some DVD's to keep her occupied on the trip from their small rental home in Maine.
Her mind drifted to the well-watched Hetalia DVD's in her hotel room. The loveable characters, the personifications of each countries stereotype, never failed to bring a smile to her face. She loved that it was a different show than anything she had watched, and how she actually learned something from it. The cheerful North Italy, the stern Germany, the silent Japan, the childlike Russia, each character mesmerized her with the depth of their character and personality.
Inspiration struck her like lightning, and Clarisse collapsed right onto the steps leading up to the Lincoln Monument, ignoring the huffs and stares from the bystanders. As she swept her ginger hair into a loose pony-tail, her mind planned out the body positions, facial expressions, and clothing styles for each of the characters of Hetalia.
If there was one thing that Clarisse Isabelle Irvingson knew, it was that when inspiration strikes, you start drawing. No exceptions.
Yanking her large sketchbook out of a satchel bag that seemed too small to hold such a large item, she set the book aside and plunged her arm into the blue bag's depths, feeling her way along the bottom of the bag. Her bushy eyebrows inched their way closer to each other, like caterpillars, in frustration when she had yet to find her favorite mechanical pencil.
She yanked her arm out of her bag, pencil in hand, with a victory shout. Other vacationers and tourists looked at her strangely, noting her creased blue shirt with the X-Men insignia on it, paint splotched khaki capris, sloppy ginger pony-tail, and the buttons pinned to her faded blue satchel bag which sported phrases like "I haven't had my coffee this morning, don't make me kill you." "It's the WAMBULENCE!" and the largest one sported the Hetalia logo.
Clarisse ignored their stares as she flipped to a clean page in her sketchbook and began to roughly sketch out the angles for the bodies. After she finished, Clarisse moved on to adding in the actual bodies, then the clothes, then the hair, and then the faces. Once she finished that, she dove into her bag (not literally) in a frantic search for her shading pencils. After a few long minutes, and one large gulp of just-barely-warm tea, she found her pencils and proceeded to shade in shadows and creases in the characters clothing. She had been so absorbed in her drawings that she didn't seem to realize that something had changed in her surroundings.
Smiling, she pulled herself away from the sketchbook she had been glued to all morning and into the afternoon, and admired her handiwork. Each country with a distinct character had been sketched out onto the paper, the Axis Powers stood tall in the front, Italy paused in the middle of hugging Germany, who had an un-amused expression on his face, Japan standing next to the pair with his katana half-drawn. The Allies stood off to the side, America munching on a hamburger, England and France trying to kill (or seriously injure) each other, with China and his wok standing in from of Russia with his childish smile on his face and pipe clenched in his hands. The other assorted character stood off to the other side, Spain being shoved aside by Romano, Prussia getting smashed in the head by Hungary, Austria with a violin, and Canada with Kumojiro farthest from the group.
Clarisse raised her pencil to add one more little shadow to America's cowlick when an obnoxious "OHONHONHON!" filled her ears and caused her to involuntarily flail, the pencil causing a thick, black line to stretch across the drawing Clarisse had spent over a half a day working on. Bitter rage boiled inside her at the sight of the ruined image she had worked so hard on, and she turned to give the bastard a piece of her mind when she saw…
FRANCE.
xXxXxXx
Francis Bonnefoy, also known to a select few as the personification of France, was for once grateful for that control-freak Germany. After Italy's pleas for pasta had become too much for the other nation to bear, he had called a break from the World Meeting and literally dragged the smaller nation to the nearest location that sold pasta.
So now France was in break, in America's capital, and bored. Because America often hosts the World Conferences (and comes up with the stupidest ideas), France knew all of the good places that would have hot, single girls just waiting for him. Unfortunately, the Lincoln Monument was not one of them.
France sighed, giving the crowd a quick glance to see if there was anyone worth his attention. A flash of ginger caught his eye, and he made his way towards it. He took in the young woman, who was hunched over her sketchbook and oblivious to the world. He smiled, this day was looking up!
France crept closer and leaned in and whispered his classic "ohonhonhon" into her ear, but jumped back when she lashed out. The girl whipped around, fire in her emerald eyes shining past the tears that were welling up in them. France couldn't see a reason for her to cry…
"You asshole!" she screamed in his face. "I spent all day working on that picture, and because you were too damn stupid, it's ruined!" Ah. France understood now. She was an artist, and that flailing must have ruined her picture.
"But mademoiselle, I just wanted to tell you how belle you looked!" he protested in his French accent. She glared at him, giving his uniform a glance.
"Look, why don't you run back to the rest of your cosplay group. I'm not in the mood." She spat, stooping low and snatching her sketchbook off of its spot on the step and smacking him over the head with it. France let out a cry of protest.
"Ma belle! What was that for?" he cried, holding on to his bruised head and mourning his bruised ego.
"For ruining my damn Hetalia picture." she scoffed, still glaring at him while she squatted down and picked up her drawing materials and stuffed them into her satchel bag. "Now go back to your cosplay group, where ever the hell it is, and leave me alone."
After pausing to thing for a moment, the girl had opened her ego-crunching sketchbook and tore out a drawing, stuffed it in his hand, and stomped down the stairs in a huff, leaving France to wonder what had just happened to him.
Once he had regained some semblance of thought, he called after her retreating figure, "But what is your name?"
The girl spun around on her heel, ginger pony-tail smacking her face. "Clarissa Irvingson." She called over the background noise, and she disappeared into the crowd.
France stared at the spot the strange girl had disappeared from, and then glanced at the drawing in his hand, and frowned. This wasn't good at all.
He whipped out his cell phone and dialed the first number in his speed dial.
"What the hell do you want, frog?" was the greeting he received from the man on the other end of the line, his British accent tinged with annoyance.
"We have a problem."
xXxXxXx
The countries attending the World Meeting, and that one guy with the polar bear everyone kept forgetting, sat around the large table, grumbling and waiting to hear what had caused their break to be cut off early. Germany sat next to Italy, munching on some wurst he had ordered while Italy happily slurped up the spaghetti he had twirled around a fork.
France threw open the double doors dramatically and stormed into the conference room. He blew past his seat and up to the front of the room. The country's face was red from running from the Lincoln Monument to the secret meeting room below the Congress Building, and he was panting slightly.
England huffed in annoyance, and set his tea cup back into its matching saucer with a clank. "Well, frog?" the Brit demanded, "What was so bloody important that we had to cut the break short just so you could share whatever it is with us?"
"This," was all France replied as he slammed Clarissa's drawing on the table. The countries all gathered around and began to whisper as they saw themselves in the drawing.
"Woah, dude, where did you, like, get this?" America asked while munching a hamburger. England rolled his eyes at his former ward's grammer.
"A girl." France answered, still trying to catch his breath, and deciding that the crowd wasn't helping.
"Isn't it always?" Russia innocently asked, with a childish smile half-hidden in his trademark white scarf.
France glared at his former ally. "Non, she was at the Lincoln Monument. I saw her drawing and accidently scared her. She blamed me for ruining her drawing, and said something about me getting back to my cosplay group, whatever that means, and stomped off."
Japan nodded. "Yes, it would seem that she believed that you were dressing up as an anime character, even though I have yet to see an anime with a character dressed like you…"
While all of the others were bickering over what to do about the girl, Italy had approached the drawing while it was abandoned, and he noted the skill and expertise in the drawing, which must have taken a lot of time and energy. He also saw the thick black pencil line running across the drawing, and understood how the mysterious author girl must have felt when it happened.
"Ve~, this girl must be a very good artist!" Italy cooed. The countries turned to glare at the clueless country.
"Well, something must be done about this girl," England proposed. "She knows far too much to be left up to her own devices."
"Yeah! Dudes, he should, like, totally tail her, ya know, like it spy movies! We can all, like, take turns following her so she won't, like, get suspicious!"
"For once, idiot, you actually come up with a good idea." Engalnd said, glancing at the other country.
"You never told us her name, France." China spoke up, and the other personifications nodded.
"Oh, she is Clarissa Irvingson." France stated.
America concentrated hard, but paused. "France, ya know that there is, like, no regestured United States citizen named Clarissa Irvingson, right?"