Just a short Aushun oneshot based upon the song "Take This Waltz" by Patricia O'Callaghan! I hope you enjoy!


If Roderich ever had to imagine the end of the world before this moment, it wouldn't have been like this. Never like this.

He wouldn't have pictured this world, this world where the sky is streaked with burning red and black and grey. This world where ash rains down from the heavens like snow, where buildings and streets burn around them, where the last dregs of humanity are still struggling to survive. It would not be this world that he, and the other nations, are now forced to walk in forever, their people dead, their countries destroyed, now representing nothing but themselves and their own fear.

His wounds aren't healing as quickly now, and new ones are constantly forming. Elizabeta's condition is the same. It can only be assumed that the other nations are suffering the same fate; the entire world is suffering the same fate. Roderich regrets a lot of things now.

The once-great nations traipse through the ash; it's a couple of feet deep in some places, kicking up plumes of grey with every step. All around, there are only streets choked with the metal skeletons of cars, the ruins of buildings, ruins that are still burning in some places, sending spirals of dark smoke into the air. It hurts to breathe, and Roderich wonders if he can die.

He doesn't know where he is, and she doesn't either. But it hardly matters now, because all there is, anywhere, is more destruction, devastation, the skeletons of civilization.

There are reminders everywhere. He averts his eyes from the bodies, lying piled up everywhere. The lucky ones were instantly vaporized; they felt no pain. Countless others choked to death on the poisonous air, or were crushed by falling wreckage, or burned alive in hungry flames. There is no movement that he can see, other than the two of them. It feels shameful, to him, to stare at the remains of their final moments.

He turns to Hungary - Elizabeta, now, because neither of them represent a nation any longer. Her hair and skin are caked with ash. Her dress is torn and her apron is lost. Her eyes betray no emotion, only a certain hardness.

Roderich takes her hand without a word. The world is silent, other than the crackling of the remaining flames, and their muffled footsteps, and their harsh inhalations and exhalations. They shouldn't be able to survive in this; there is no clean air to breathe, anywhere. Yet somehow, they do. He has begun to question how far their immortality will extend, now that they are no longer nations.

They both stop walking, and he turns towards her. "May I have this dance?" he requests, his voice raspy, and she probably thinks that he's gone insane.

She nods. There is no music, and everything about their surroundings is oh so wrong for dancing. And yet he places his free hand on her waist, and they're dancing. It starts out jerky, slowly, as they twirl and step together. But eventually it's coordinated, and somehow graceful and fluid. Their steps are a bit out of sync, but somehow it seems perfect to him.

They dance, and the world burns around them.