Title: Songs To Heal The Heart
Rating: T
Summary: AU; There have been tales of an angel with the gift of a healing song. Many have pursued this image, yet none have confirmed her existence. One girl sets out to prove that she does truly live, and she will indeed heal the one she's devoted to.
Pairings: BelaLiech, slight one-sided RussBela, minor AmeCan and Spamano, mentions of GerIta, FrUk and AusHun; There may be more later on.
Ages: Natalya- ~18-20
Lili: ~16-18
Antonio: ~23-25
Lovino: 21
Alfred: 21
Matthew: 21
Ludwig: 20
Feliciano: 19
Arthur: ~23-25
Francis: ~25-27
Ivan: 25
Yekatrina: 28
Roderich- ~25-27
Elizabeta- ~24-27
Vash- ~20-22
Gilbert- ~24-26
Whoa, damn, that's a lot of people. e A e;;
Disclaimer: I don't own Hetalia! Nor anything I mention in this story. I don't even own the laptop I'm typing on.
A/N: At first this was going to be Spamano, but then I noticed a severe lack of BelaLiech crowding this website, which saddened me greatly. I can always save a more fitting plot for them anyway, correct? So, I thought it out and decided to post my second addition to the BelaLiech archive.
Enjoy!
Travelling the countryside was the rumour of a young girl with the power to heal people- with her singing. She was angelic, the people heard, and her personality was sweet and gracious. Her hair shone like strands of gold and her eyes were so green they could put emeralds to shame. She was fair-skinned and petite and one quirk of her coral pink lips could make your heart melt.
The oldest tale was that of a man that was attacked by bandits on his way to a nearby village, wounded so severely that he could hardly see where he was going, only stumbling blindly along a path. Then, out of nowhere, there was the angelic beauty. She propped him up in his lap and sang a beautiful melody, her voice sweeter than honey and smoother than holy water. His wounds had miraculously healed, but when he tried to inquire her name, she had disappeared.
These were all rumours though, tales woven over the years with all kinds of peoples' input. For all they knew, she could be a spiteful little brat with an ear-bleeding singing voice. Hell, she could be spreading the rumours herself.
Or she could be fake. A fairytale. That was always a possibility.
People still took chances though. There was always that chance of her being real that people prayed on, clung onto like it was a lifeline. Which, in a way, it was. They or a loved one, one dear enough to their heart to be desperately chasing after a rumour, a myth, a fairytale, could be dying. All it boiled down to was the fact that when people became desperate, they chased after the image of her. No one had ever returned to confirm her existence, but many dismissed the complication. "They went off to live a better life in a city somewhere, became King and they're living in luxury," they said, desperate to keep the story alive. To any sane person, it was an obvious hoax.
Natalya could care less about these things though. She was determined to find the angel from the stories her older sister would tell her before bedtime. Ivan needed her. Ivan was dying. Ivan would disappear if she didn't take action-
No one had any idea what had happened to him. It may have been from an animal bite, it may have been from the cold or from a sickness spreading from other villagers... No one was quite sure. It left the doctors baffled though. Usually when people were ill, they tended to get fevers. Not Ivan. Ivan's temperature was dropping to dangerous levels. As if he was turning into a corpse overnight... The man's loving sisters did everything they could to make his body return to normal. He was constantly wrapped up in heated blankets, blankets Natalya would leave outside all day when the sun was blazing, constantly given hot coco and tea, and he had both sisters sleeping next to him every night for body heat. He rarely awoke though, and when he did, he was somewhat delirious. Yekatrina cried about it every night while Natalya worried for his life. She couldn't lose him. She couldn't go on without her beloved brother.
So in the middle of the night she threw her cloak over her shoulders, packed a bag full of food for her journey and another full of the money she had been saving up before she padded her way to her brother's bedside, placed a kiss to his ice cold skin- "General Winter, I'm so cold, I'm so cold, please, stay away!" was a phrase that she often heard from him whenever his temperature would drop- and slipped out as quietly as she could. Ivan would be fine, she assured herself with a bit of a grimace, He's got Yekatrina with him. He always had preferred the elder sister.
The pale female double-checked herself- Knives, check, food, check, money, check, a spare ribbon and dress, check, cloak, check- before she flipped up the hood of the black cloth surrounding her and walked through the silent town. She had a long journey ahead of her, but it was all worth it. For Ivan. Ivan, her sweet, sweet brother. Her life. She was completely convinced she was going to marry him when she was younger. What a silly idea. He made it clear how silly it was too; rejecting her sharply and keeping his distance. She never had a chance.
It hurt her to think about it, really. She spent years devoting herself to him, only to be spurned for her love. It hurt her to watch him run from her into the arms of her sister. She loved him more, so why was it always her that got his affections? It wasn't fair! She spent all of her time trying to win over his affection, yet she got it effortlessly? God must have frowned during her birth.
Sighing to herself, the determined girl continued walking, only glancing behind her to make sure there weren't any men trying to follow her. It was a far-fetched notion, seeing as she was known for cutting anyone that attempted anything she disapproved of, but there was still a possibility of drunk males trying to take her home with them. Luckily for her, there were none, so she continued her journey with determination and a brisk undertone to her steps.
'Well,' she thought to herself bitterly, 'At least I'll get a bit more excitement in my life.'
Ribbons~
"I can get you the bread." a blond man with a gun insisted with a frown, desperate to convince the woman in front of him to agree to his terms. The girl frowned, twisting the golden key around the chain hanging from her neck. It was obvious she was disappointed, but she didn't seem to want to keep protesting.
"Ja... Danke, big bruder..." Yes, thank you big brother. Of course she'd agree with him. She'd always agree and thank him for whatever she offered. For any other person, she'd insist and argue about it being a simple trip to the market to grab some bread, no one would recognize her! She was perfectly safe. She watched her brother leave the house with his gun over his shoulder, slumping into a seat with a sigh. This was quickly becoming a frustrating argument.
She was quite obviously aware of the tales spreading about her... abilities, and her brother took extra measures to make sure no one would attempt to kidnap her. Many people had approached her and requested for her to sing, suspicious about her resemblance to the girl described in the fairytale, but she politely refused and claimed that she was much too embarrassed to try. It wasn't as if she wanted to refuse people- no, no, quite the opposite, actually. She wanted to help people with her powers, but Vash strongly disapproved after the first stranger she had treated.
Lili had happily healed many people in her small village before. She was always willing to help anyone that needed it, be it a small child with a scrape on his knee to men who had protected their belongings from thieves. She was always smiles and kind words. Until a foreigner had stumbled into the village with gun wounds from thieves and she instantly agreed to heal him.
That was when things took a turn for the worst.
He had stared at her as if he had seen the face of a goddess before demanding to know more about her, demanding her name, age, birthday, where she was born, where she lived, if she would marry him... That was the most outrageous of his demands. Vash immediately pulled her away from the desperate man, shoving his shotgun in his face and threatening to blow him to bits if he laid on finger on his precious baby sister.
The blonde was startled and confused, peeking over her brother's shoulder to stare at the stranger with furrowed brows and a curious frown. He had been refused from learning any tiny piece of information about her. Not even her name. When he begged the other villagers to tell him, they all turned away from him.
So he left a few hours later, dazed and frustrated. It took about three weeks for word to reach the peaceful village about the apparent "angel with a golden song" healing a lowly merchant. It took Roderich, a musician that had grown up with Vash and was married to one of Lili's best friends, Elizabeta, about five seconds to figure out the tale was about their very own Lili Zwingli. It took Elizabeta ten seconds to pull out her frying pan (where she hid that, no one knew) and threaten to murder the man if any trouble started from this. The young girl had laughed and dismissed her, flustered over being called an angel. She just wanted to help. It wasn't a very huge deal.
But it turned into a huge deal. People began searching for her. There were murmurs of men kidnapping any blonde women they could get their hands on, making the village a bit uneasy. They were a village full of people of Germanic descent, making most of the people there blonde. Slowly they began to turn on the pair, throwing Lili into despair. This was all her fault. She was just trying to help someone out, but she was causing so much pain and sadness-!
It was too much to handle. She attempted to run away after nights spent silently crying in her room, her fragile heart taking all of the blame for the pain of others. Her guilt was tearing her apart. So she planned to give herself up to the man to save the other women. She was caught, of course, by her brother and they decided to move away to a more populated and diverse city. Roderich and Elizabeta happily accompanied them, claiming that the village was boring them anyway. Once they had found a satisfactory place to settle down, Lili was set on lock-down, rarely being allowed to leave her home. Healing was absolutely out of the question.
She was getting bored quickly. Yes, her Hungarian friend did keep her company most of the time, but it was still making her restless. Her lifestyle was annoying her. She'd never say it aloud, no, no, never in her life, but it was still there. If she was just allowed some freedom...
'Maybe then I could gain some excitement,' she thought to herself with a sigh as she sipped the tea she had prepared for her and her brother once he returned. 'Or maybe I could heal someone again. It hurts seeing wounded children outside my window without being able to do anything... I just want a purpose again...'
Little did both women know that their lives were about to be filled to the brink with purpose, adventure, excitement, sadness, anger and, most importantly, love.
