A/N: If you're following my Beg, Steal, or Borrow story, don't worry, I'm still working on it, I just needed a side project...weirdly enough, writing other things helps me through my writer's block, sometimes.

Also, I just really love the Nordics, especially Denmark. This story is about him, but it'll also focus on his relationship with Sweden, fem!Norway, and later, Finland, Iceland, and Sealand. I'm going to try to base this loosely off of chronological events, so please let me know if there are any glaring inaccuracies (although you shouldn't have to worry about that in this chapter.)

He barely remembered the earliest years of his life. He lacked the memories—it was the smells that stayed with him. Freshly turned earth, the heady smell of sweat on the too-short summer days, and always, always the smell of the sea, salty and fresh and full of life. Those centuries were a blur, for the most part. It was only when his people began to harvest the metals of the earth that he began to really remember. Before then, he didn't recall much at all. He made it his business to explore every inch of his land. He had centuries to do it. He didn't realize, at first, how different he was from the other children that he occasionally came across, in the scattered villages that began to crop up in the countryside and along the ocean. He didn't understand why after such a short time of playing, they suddenly shot up like little weeds, towering over him. He didn't understand why they lost interest in playing with him, and how, after more time, they would begin to weaken, like plants in the hot, noonday sun. And then they were gone. He did not understand at first. But he would.

Eventually, an older couple found him, wandering in the fertile lands of Ribe* one fine summer day.

"Wife, d'you see that?" The man, a burly, bear-like person called Bjorn Køhler by his friends, asked.

His wife looked in the direction that he indicated. There appeared to be a small child in their garden. "There seems to be a little rabbit in our vegetable garden," Hulda said, frowning.

"But a child, in these parts? So far from the village?" Her husband mused.

"If you're so curious, go and speak to the little barn," his wife groused. "I'm going back inside to finish the washing."

"Boy," the man called. The child looked up guiltily, his apple cheeks bulging with raw carrots. The man stepped out from his simple wooden home, chuckling a little at the sight, and called out again, "Boy!"

The child froze as he approached. He looked to be no more than five or six, with long, golden hair, riddled with twigs and leaves, strangely dark eyebrows, and wide, wide eyes the precise color of the Danish sky at high noon. He swallowed the mouthful of food and said, "Hej?"

"What are you doing here, child?" The man asked, kneeling down so that he stood at the child's level. Something about the little boy's intense gaze sent shivers down the man's spine. It was strange, and yet…he got that feeling, like he had passed through a cemetery, and brushed with something…more than human. Could it be some god-child I've found wandering on my land? He wondered. The child looked ordinary enough, and yet…

"Exploring. I am claiming this as my own," the little boy said imperiously, gesturing to the land with a wide smile.

The man chuckled. What an audacious barn. "Are you now?" He asked. "What is your name, little one?"

The child smiled widely, all snaggle teeth and chapped lips. "Mathias," he said in a clear tenor voice. And suddenly, it clicked in his head. Mathias, like the child in the legend*. The child that walked with the gods, that lived forever, that had been to the great halls of Valhalla and back. So the legends were true. Bjorn was a very pious, superstitious man, but his wife was even more so. Both of them had grown up hearing the old legends, older even than the stories of the gods, about humans who seemingly lived forever, humans that were somehow tied to the land. And this particular child, who looked like a fay from some ancient folk tale, with his far-seeing eyes…

"Mathias?" The man repeated, scratching his scraggly beard in contemplation. "I see. And how old are you, søn? To be wandering on your own like this…"

Mathias grinned, looking like a right little savage. He looked like he'd never seen a bath in his life. "Oh, awhile," he answered cheekily. "Do you have anything to eat?"

Bjorn's smile widened. "Come inside for a bit," he suggested, offering his hand to the little boy. Mathias took it happily, and followed him inside.

And that was how Mathias found a home, temporarily at least. He helped his foster parents tend to their small garden, shear the sheep, and mind the house. Occasionally he went to the small village to trade carded wool for new tools or food they didn't grow themselves. People whispered about him, called him a changeling child, as he didn't seem to grow like the other children. Over time, he grew a very little, and yet, he somehow knew more than even the oldest bards. Mathias didn't really care for the villagers. He loved his parents, and that was enough for him, for now. And yet…

He couldn't miss the signs of aging. His beloved papa required a walking stick, and Mama Hulda could no longer chase down stray sheep like she used to, when he first moved in with them. Mathias didn't mind. He liked to help them out, and when he was done, he liked to sit outside the house on the hill that overlooked the rest of the lowlands and watch the great birds from the north pass over in search of warmer climates. And he felt that itch inside of him, that need to roam again. He glanced over his shoulder and saw his mama and papa sitting comfortably in the one-room hut, arguing over what was for supper. He smiled. He would be back in time for supper, he reasoned.

Later, he would swear that he had only been gone for a few days. He had been captivated by a wild hare, and chased it all the way to…well, somehow he ended up at the sea. By the time he made it back home, they were gone.

"Papa?" He cried, when he saw the familiar sloping thatched roofs of his village. "Papa Bjorn? Can you tell me where my papa is?" He tugged on the long, sweeping robes of the villagers, but none of them looked even remotely familiar. "My mama? Can you tell me where Hulda is?"

Finally, one very old woman recognized him. "Mathias?" She exclaimed, upon seeing the despairing little boy in the middle of the market place. "Is that you?"

He squinted at her, trying to discern a face behind all those wrinkles. "Ja, I am Mathias," he said, sounding uncertain for once. "I am looking for my papa and mama! Do you know where they are?"

She knew. She had been only a child when she last saw him, but she remembered. Everyone remembered Mathias.

"But how…" He stood in the tiny cemetery, staring at the two small, crudely marked rocks that indicated the place where his parents now lay. "I only left for a few days…they weren't so old…"

"Mathias, you were gone for years," the woman said, taking pity on the child. "Your parents searched the neighboring towns for months for you. They didn't know what became of you."

He turned to her, tears brimming in his bright blue eyes. "I didn't know," he protested, a heartbreaking expression on his deceptively young face. "I forgot…you don't live as long…as me." He hung his head and pulled his cloak tightly around his shoulders, so that his face was hidden underneath the woolen hood. "Why…why do they die so quickly?"

"Mathias," the old woman said. She knelt down next to him in the dirt and bare grass of the cemetery and gently cupped his little face in her bony hands. "You know you are not one of us."

Hiccupping slightly, he nodded. "But what am I?"

She hesitated. "A land," she said finally. "You understand?"

He shook his head. "No," he huffed. "I don't understand why I get to live so long and why they…" His eyes flickered to their graves and away again, filling rapidly with tears. "I don't understand why they have to die!"

"I wish I knew," she told him honestly. "But I do not know these things. Only Odin does."

Mathias swallowed hard, and the woman's heart broke as the child forced himself not to cry. He shook her hands off and went to kneel by his parents' graves. "Farvel," he whispered, running his dirty fingers over the worn stones. "Jeg er ked af det." He searched around for a moment before he found what he was looking for—a patch of flowers grew a few feet away, and he plucked them without hesitation, gingerly placing the bundle of red clovers on top of the smooth markers. He turned to the woman, remembering the few manners that Hulda had managed to teach him, and said, "Thank you."

"You're welcome," she said, with a crooked smile. "Be safe, little one."

He nodded, and with a final, heavy glance at the fading markers, he took off running as hard as he could in the opposite direction. He made a promise to himself that for as long as he lived, he would never become attached to humans again. They just faded too quickly for him, and he was tired of it. He made it all the way to the sea, only a day's journey but nonetheless a hard one for a child on foot, and collapsed on the beach. He slept that night under the stars, dreaming of his papa and mama one last time. Jeg er ked af, he thought, as tears streamed down his cheeks for the second time that day before sleep claimed him.

Yeah, I didn't really know how to write about the Bronze and Iron Ages...so I kind of glossed over them. Denmark had the highest culture out of the three Scandinavian countries (according to Danish websites, anyways) and developed the quickest into scattered villages with some agriculture and commerce, but it was still, you know, fairly primitive. And so I think Denmark himself would be too.

Also I wanted him to have some sort of a family before he met Sweden and fem!Norway, and interactions with humans, so I hope you don't mind my OCs too much. By the way, Bjorn means 'bear' (also I just really like that name) and Hulda means kind, but also mysterious. The next chapter will be more cheerful, I promise. I just wanted to explore Denmark's growing up and coming to terms with what he is.

Translations (terribly sorry if these are off; I don't speak Danish and I used Google translate...)

Barn - child

Hej - hello

Søn - son

Ja - yes

Land - country

Farvel - good bye

Jeg elsker dig - I love you

Jeg er ked af - I'm sorry

*Ribe is the oldest known town in Denmark! It was founded in the early 8th century A.D., which is more or less when I want this little scene to take place...before the Viking Age, but after the Iron Age.

*I didn't know how normal humans would handle the idea of countries as people, so I had them associate Mathias and children like him with some of their own Norse legends and mythology. Hope that wasn't too confusing.

Oh yes, and red clovers are the national flower of Denmark, according to Wikipedia, which is what Mathias put at their graves...and he takes their last name later in life :')