A/N: Hey all, Greyhound here. First of all, uh, thanks for choosing to read this. c: First fanfic on , but far, far from my first fanfiction overall. ^^
The inspiration for this came from Lune's version of Leave the World Behind, such a beautiful, haunting song. Go look it up, maybe listen whilst you read? :3
I hope you all enjoy this!~
He found the crunch of his own footsteps so very comforting.
Stiff with frost, the grass crackled satisfyingly beneath Emil's boots. He had no idea where he was headed, but it just felt right. To be out here in the sharp, frozen air, with icy grass beneath him, and the vast expanse of the sea out beyond him was just so right.
It was out here that he could be at ease, where he could forget his problems. Nothing mattered when you were practically lost in the middle of nowhere, and Emil just adored that feeling. With the biting air nipping at him, it created such a beautiful, surreal feeling. He reached out to nothing in particular with numb fingertips, flexing them and gently smiling to himself.
There was nothing to really remind him of what was going on at home. Emil perched himself precariously at the edge of a cliff, the raging ocean pounding upon the very same cliff as though it had a deathly grudge. Legs swinging, he looked out to sea, watching the silhouettes of boats drift along the horizon.
Yes, it was times like this, times that he was completely and utterly alone, that Emil loved the most. He didn't have to worry about other people, or politics, or anything in the world. Out here, he could be anyone, anyone he wished, and not the human personification of the Republic of Iceland.
Questions floated around within the once-empty expanse of his mind, questions which he could answer at his own pace, in his own time. Emil liked the control, even if it was only a sort of illusion. Time could pass as quickly or slowly as it desired, only making him further lost.
When he grew numb from the cold rock, he got up and continued his wandering, regardless of the fact that the sky was now beginning to darken. The thought of his 'brothers' back at home drifted lazily into his little thought bubble. Were they worried? Maybe. Oh well. They'd been worried before, they could be worried again. What did it matter to him?
"I'm not a child anymore," Emil mumbled to himself, as if to confirm it. He felt that they were overbearing; loving, perhaps, but definitely overbearing.
Shaking his head, Emil cast the question aside. He'd gotten away from them, only to think about them? That didn't make any sense at all to the Icelander; what was the point? Mind newly emptied, he begun to think about a new topic. The cold was beginning to bother him. Begrudgingly he turned back towards the direction in which he had come from, beginning the slow trek back.
His mind drifted during his journey, from the numbness he felt from the cold to the rage he was likely to provoke by returning home so late. Indeed, by this point it was completely dark, and yet his feet effortlessly carried him home, as if on autopilot. A sigh left him as the glimmering light of his home came into view; he didn't want to come back home.
Begrudgingly, he pushed open the door, stepping inside and slipping off his boots. Almost instantaneously, he was greeted by what sounded an awful lot like a cacophony of voices, but in reality were only 2. Emil looked up to the sight of his brothers all gathered by the entrance to their home: Tino starting a rant about why it was bad for him to be out in the cold at this time of night, much like a mother; Berwald hovering just behind Tino, his typical terrifying glare gracing his features; Matthias suggesting his collection of ideas of where Emil could have been (most of them involved the possibility of him drinking alcohol); and finally Lukas, blank faced as always, yet something swirling within the usually dull midnight-coloured orbs of his eyes that made him absolutely terrifying, more so even than Berwald.
The Icelander chose to simply ignore them and push past, much to their disliking. However, his wrist fell into a tight, cold grip, alarmingly akin to the bitter air he had just left. Turning on his heel, he looked up into the chilling eyes of his own biological brother – Lukas. They still swirled with a mass of emotions – distraught, worry, and rage some of the more prominent among them – whilst the rest of his face and general body language betrayed nothing.
"What is it?" Emil sighed, tugging his wrist back. Behind Lukas stood the others, intimidating the Icelandic boy a little but he found it easy enough to paint them out of the picture and just concentrate on his brother.
"Where were you? We were worried, you know," Answered Lukas, his voice not showing an ounce of that worry as he folded his arms. Emil glanced away, not able to keep the steady eye contact any longer. All the contentment that he had felt earlier had dripped away to nothing, leaving him with an irritatingly empty feeling.
"Out," He mumbled, finding the swirls within the wood of the floorboards far more interesting at that point in time, "I was out in the wilderness. On the cliffs." He heard Tino's worried gasp and Matthias' chuckle, and could easily paint a mental image not too dissimilar to the actual thing – Tino with a worried, shocked expression, mouth quite likely open in an 'o' shape, Matthias laughing to himself at the thought, Berwald unchanged, and Lukas…
"Why were you out there? You could've gotten lost," There, that was Lukas' reaction. Empty sounding voice, and yet meaningful, worried words. Emil shook his head.
"I go out there a lot, I don't think I could get lost…" He voiced his thoughts out loud, trailing off as he looked back up. He chose to focus on the cross pin which held his brother's left bangs in place, the odd gold strand brushing over it.
"But why? Why were you out there, brother dear?" Emil flinched at the nickname, though it was 'affectionate'. It irritated him to no end, making him feel like a little child. He was quickly growing tired of this conversation, even though it was not yet particularly old.
Emil clutched his fist as he began to speak. He decided it was time to throw light upon the matter, to spell it out to the others.
"Because I feel happy out there, complete. There's nothing to worry about, and I'm free. Free like a bird. I don't feel like there anywhere else, only out there, out in the middle of nowhere. It's out there, that I feel at home…"
This was indeed the one time that Emil felt truly content; when he left the world behind.