This is a bit late for Remembrance Day itself but in sunny Britain we have a Remembrance service on the nearest Sunday as well.

Disclaimer: I don't own Hetalia. Britain doesn't own John McCrae. The Canadians do.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow

Loved and were loved, and now we lie

In Flanders fields

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep

Though poppies blow

In Flanders fields

A gentle breeze stirred the flowers, flicking them back and forth around the field. From a distance it looks as though it were the waves of a scarlet ocean, stretching for miles.

A man walks between the flowers, his fingers brushing the silken petals. A small polar bear walks beside him, silent as his master weaves his way along long forgotten paths.

Each step brings forth memories, of this place and others. An endless rush of memories, of pain and loss, of people he knew, both friend and enemy. All dead.

The wind picks up and sends the blood-flowers tumbling around bone white crosses. Too many. As he walks through the sea of twisting red, his blond hair obscuring his violet eyes, something silently cracks.

His feet moved faster as they made their way to a spot among the flowers. He stopped and turned round facing east, remembering what had been.

Once that place had been sunken, surrounded by walls of mud. The fire step. The man closed his eyes and let the river of memories flow over him.

A sentry posted at dawn. The sun rising in the east, over the German trenches light illuminating a muddy wasteland and endless coils of barbed wire with rotting bodies ensnared within. A rat scrambles over the mud, devouring those long dead.

Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori eh?

What glory was there to be found dying in your millions in a muddy hole in France or Belgium?

None, none at all, just another lie, like 'It'll all be over by Christmas.' Yeah 1918 and 20 million lives later.

Slowly the torrent ebbs. Two minutes spent standing to attention over an old firing step, buried under layers of mud. Two minutes at eleven o clock on the eleventh day of the eleventh month remembering a war that had ended 92 years ago. 92 years, a human's lifetime, yet the man who remembered looked only 20.

He sighed and picked up the white bear that walked beside him, snagging one of the scarlet flowers in his fingers. He looked at it for a minute then replaced the paper and plastic one on his breast with the flower, letting the fake one fall on the spot he was standing. Then he strode west through the tumbling spirit-flowers towards an Englishman, an American, a Frenchman and a Belgian, all wearing poppies.

Lest we forget

References:

In Flanders fields was written by John McCrae in May 1915 after the death of his friend. McCrae himself was a Canadian doctor hence why I used Canada.

Blood flowers/ spirit flowers: the poppies grow over places where the battles were fought. So in a way they represent each soldier's spirit.

Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori: (Latin) It is great and good to die for your country. A piece of propaganda that the British government spread at the time (Canada was part of the British empire till after the war). Incidentally Wilfred Owens wrote a very bitter poem of that name.

AN: reviews would be greatly appreciated so please do so if you wish. I'll be back in December with a host of Christmas carols (and the truce of 1914. What? I'm doing ww1 in history.) and 2 things: 1. The British wear poppies too and 2. One last thought:

Golden lads and girls all must

As chimney sweepers come to dust

Shakespeare (don't know which play)